When Chris Ingham, patriarch of the popular YouTube channel The Ingham Family, was outed for sending inappropriate messages to fans as young as 16, it was widely assumed that his career would come to a grinding halt. However, a combination of a lack of care from YouTube and the wider public, has enabled Chris to continue plying his trade as a powerful influencer.
Alongside his main family YouTube channel, Chris has made a fortune with his self-described ‘side hustles’. So much so that he has recently moved his entire family out to Dubai to continue his prolonged success.
But should he have been allowed to make it this far after what many perceive as a huge abuse of power?
Who Is Chris Ingham?
Christopher John Malcolm Ingham was born on Friday 13th July 1985 to his parents (Leslie) Jane Ingham and Stephen Ingham. Chris had had a troubled upbringing with being born as a person of colour…ed hair. His flowing ginger locks were the source of much embarrassment and ridicule and his peers were never shy at making him feel worthless. He would grow to use that shame and torture to show his resolve and soon set about on a path of self-discovery as he found solace in his various career choices. From his budding doctor career to his day job piloting commercial airlines to the exhilaration of storm chasing in North America Chris’s life couldn’t have been better. Then he met his future wife, Miss Sarah Of The Dixons. Together Chris and Sarah planned world domination, but stumbled at every block until they discovered the art of filming their girls in the bathtub. That’s when Chris’s life truly took an upward trajectory and he could discard of those side hustles at Bradford Hospital and Bradford and Leeds Airport.
Family flogging was born. At the height of the Ingham Family fame they were pulling in 150,000+ views every single day as other children flocked to watch the daily goings on with their idols. Schools were full of kids sporting The Ingham Family merch as they became a household name. Chris Ingham lapped up his rockstar lifestyle as he was revered wherever he went. His little heart fluttered whenever he met an Ingham Family fan (Ifam) and he rocked his hero-like status with fans screaming his name in the Beatle-mania which followed.
Allegations
2018 was a bad year for Chris Ingham. On 2nd July he hit the headlines for exerting his influencer power to get what he wanted from his ifam. An inspirational young lady by the name of Jess released an impactful statement on Twitter outlining her negative experience of Chris during a holiday of a lifetime at Disney World Florida the previous October 2017. Jess told how her then idol showered her with praise about how pretty she was. The then 16 year old was subjected to a barrage of requests from the then 33 year old married with three children influencer to sneak out of her hotel room at 2am to meet up. Jess explained how she sat in fear in a foreign country while ‘home alone’ one evening as Chris threatened to come to her room for a ‘party’.
The furore which followed was unprecedented as the public demanded answers, particularly after a second young woman came forward. 21 year old Hayley made a second allegation against Chris Ingham, claiming to have met up with him and had sex in a Leeds hotel. She provided a story and screenshots of conversations to back this up which showed her to have travelled down from Scotland to Leeds with the promise of a skating experience. He was a skater and she wanted to give it a try. However, when she arrived in Leeds, staying at the Ibis Hotel, Chris came to her hotel room, kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned his trousers and got straight down to business.
In the subsequent days a third girl came forward detailing her own negative experience with Chris Ingham. Chloe was 19 years of age and provided evidence of Chris’s attempts at getting inappropriately close to her. The young Chloe was told she was ‘definitely not fat’ and when she told how she had been suicidal, Chris simply told her to come and hang out with a ‘chill dude like him’ instead of getting her help.
A fourth girl added her own experience. 19 year old Bella met The Ingham Family at Alton Towers where she worked. Chris Ingham took it upon himself to insert himself into her life following that meeting and promised to make her an Instagram star as he had the power and contacts to do so. He also asked a serious of inappropriate questions such as whether or not Bella had ever been propositioned by hotel guests where she worked.
Other anonymous girls gave their own evidence to provide an overall shocking display of abuse of an influencer’s power.
Six years on from the first allegations, Chris Ingham and indeed the brand The Ingham Family have never fully recovered as the incident has followed them around and has been past on to their children too.
The question is, what would have happened if Chris Ingham had simply owned his mistakes and apologised?
Thank you for bringing the family vloggers into the light, for everyone to see their despicable behaviour. Filming your children for content, without informed consent is wrong. Talking to, and being around children in an inappropriate manner is wrong. Knowingly putting children in harms way is wrong. Adults who do this should be prosecuted. Family vloggers should not be allowed to travel around the world with their children avoiding any scrutiny of their parenting skills whilst filming their kids for content. Who is safeguarding those children? Noone.
This is disgusting behaviour considering he has young daughters and a step daughter, he should not be around children. He should be banned from the internet, his behaviour is unacceptable to all people watching and been influenced by people like him ! This family with him in it is very. Worrying and damaging. To them the sheer fact his wife accepts this behaviour is unbelievable, I do believe this has been reported to the police and I ask you to ban this man with immediate affect, for the sake of all people.
His aggressive behaviour to people and fans is dreadful, putting his two young daughters on locks in Scotland were when he was advised to put life jackets by man, he was very abusive said the children were older and made the man out to be the villain ! 6 people died on that lock the month after including adults, two separate incidents, recently took the family to very cold country and skidded the van in conditions should not be on the road with, he also drove the van with his 6 children with no MOT, to the country , he his totally irresponsible and sees no error in his ways. This is young influential children and young adults watching tell me how this.is exeptable for people to view ? I ask you please to stop this man before any one is seriously hurt. He sees no error of his ways.