It has been a little over five years since Jordan Turpin escaped from her childhood home, where her parents imprisoned, beat, and starved her and her 12 siblings. She escaped through a window and immediately called 9-1-1 on a deactivated cell phone – hoping officers would rescue her and her siblings.
Upon their arrival, officers were surprised by the conditions in the home – the smell of fecal matter, dead animals, and trash traveled throughout the home. The children were malnourished, unhealthy, dirty, and unstable – some of whom were chained to their beds. They ate once a day and showered once a year.
It didn’t take long for officers to see what was going on. Jordan’s parents were arrested and found guilty of 14 counts of cruelty to a dependent adult, child cruelty, torture, and false imprisonment. They were sentenced to life in prison, but given the possibility of parole after 25 years. They remain in prison today.
And while the siblings – including Jordan Turpin – were freed from their parents’ horrific living conditions, it wasn’t the end of their abuse. After spending several months in the hospital, the siblings were split up and sent to foster homes or adopted – where most of them were tormented and abused even more.
Now five years later, Jordan is living a much more healthy life, and her siblings are doing well as they navigate their new life. She has nearly one million followers on TikTok, is already securing big-time modeling gigs – such as the cover of Elle magazine – and lives in her own apartment in Los Angeles.
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel real. I just feel so blessed to be free and to be able to try new things,” she said in a recent interview with TODAY. She talked about how she used to make up songs and sing them with her older siblings in front of her younger siblings to entertain them and give them a sense of normalcy.
“I wanted to show them that there was another world out there and that we were going to be free one day. I wanted to be a role model,” she explained. And that’s exactly what she is – not just to her siblings, who visit her regularly, but to anyone else out there experiencing abuse or witnessing abuse on someone else.
Jordan Turpin Has Stern Message to Social Workers
In her exclusive interview, Jordan Turpin shared a message to social workers – listen. “Like if a kid goes to you and says, ‘This is happening in the foster home,’ look into it. I just wish they had listened to me. And that’s all I can say,” she said – she was limited in what she could say due to ongoing investigations.
She also opened up about her modeling career and how free she feels in front of the camera – something photographer Jessica Gillette noticed right away. “She’s super sweet and has a very young energy — but once we got to work, this like, womanly diva came out of her. She surprised me,” Gillette said of Turpin.
As for anyone going through something similar, she wants them to know there is a way out, and it will get better. And, while the trauma won’t completely disappear, there is hope, and you can always heal from it. “I’m turning what I went through into something positive by helping others,” she told TODAY.com.
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Jordan Turpin has come a long way since her escape and subsequent abuse at foster homes, but she still has a lot of healing to do, and her childhood trauma still keeps her up at night. At the same time, she looks forward to being a mother (of three) someday and also wants to own 10 dogs – she already has two.