Artemis Stardust

Artemis in late 2019

### Siblings

Alicia Welch, Alissa Akkad, Lydia Patterson, Isaiah Jeub, Micah Jeub, Noah Jeub, Tabitha Sleeger, Keilah Kopriva, Hannah Canales, Josiah Jeub, Havilah Jeub, Joshua Jeub, Priscilla Jeub, Zechariah Jeub, Elijah Jeub

### Spouse

Ryann Beaufort (engaged)

Artemis Evren Stardust (born Cynthia Judith Jeub) is the oldest biological child (assigned female at birth) of Chris Jeub and the third of Chris and Wendy Jeub's collective sixteen children. They are currently in a relationship with Ryann Beaufort. They are well known for their decision to leave their family and speak out against their abusive lifestyle. They are currently engaged to Ryann Beaufort.

## Early Life

Artemis was born on July 17, 1992, to Chris and Wendy Jeub. They were the couple's first child, but their mother's third, and their parents went on to have thirteen more children after them. Along with their siblings, Artemis was born at home and was not vaccinated.

Artemis was given a heavy workload of chores from a young age, and was actively involved in taking care of their younger siblings. As an adult, they have said that they often prayed for strength to handle this struggle. As a young child, they often resorted to self-harm to try to deal with this. They stopped for many years, but began cutting themself again as a teen

Artemis was regularly spanked with a belt as a young child, even on days when they did nothing wrong. When they brought up these memories to their mother as an adult, she denied they ever happened. They have memories of other siblings being physically abused as well. Their parents also practiced methods from the book *To Train Up a Child* by Michael and Debi Pearl, which advocates training children by swatting them with a plumbing line. They were actively involved in their church, and participated in AWANA.

In 2006, Artemis and most of their siblings got sick with whooping cough and they nearly died. They recovered, but lost an entire semester of homeschooling.

Artemis was particularly close with their oldest sister, Alicia, when they were a younger child. They have fond memories of Alicia doing their hair and doing chores like laundry and cooking with her. In 2003, they overheard an argument where their parents told Alicia she could just sleep in the car if she was going to behave that way, and was later punishing for throwing themself into the situation, drowning out the argument with cries. They were later punished for this. They were devastated when Alicia left the family after being given an ultimatum later that year.

In 2005, Artemis's father quit his job at Focus on the Family to focus on his ministry. Artemis and their siblings were used as labor, and often guilted into giving up some of their money to the ministry if they managed to save too much. They also often authored blog posts on their family's blog. In 2007, after their family's first TV appearance aired on TLC, one of Artemis's job duties became helping their father respond to online criticism about the family. At the time, they felt defensive about the comments that they and their siblings were raising each other.

At the age of sixteen, Artemis was given a purity ring by their father and pledged to remain a virgin until they married.

As a child, they enjoyed spending the early hours of their birthday each year out in nature, then returned to bed where they were given breakfasts and gifts in bed. On their seventeenth birthday, they'd planned a Disneyland trip with their brother Micah, and the two saved money for this trip. Their parents would not let them go on the trip, and they instead spent their seventeenth birthday filming for *The Secret Lives of Women*.

As an adult, Artemis would go on to describe their childhood as "cult-like", and is known for speaking out against their parents' harmful practices.

### Childhood Education

Artemis was homeschooled growing up. They say that their education failed to prepare them for college They participated in speech tournaments with their homeschool group as a teenager.

## Post-Cult Life

### Kicked Out/Banned from Family

In 2013, Artemis and their sister Lydia were kicked out of their home for vague reasons. Artemis has said that this likely had to do with the questions about the family's faith that they brought home from college was considered a "dangerous" influence on the younger children. Their father invented made-up debts and emptied both children's bank accounts, leaving them without cars or money.

A friend took both Artemis and their sister in, and they began seeing a therapist as they entered a period of depression. As their therapist started helping them start defining personal boundaries and seeing themself as an independent individual, they started trying to stand up for their siblings when visiting. This resulted in their parents banning them, first from seeing their siblings without supervision, and later from seeing them at all. The ultimate ban from their family came when they refused to submit to counseling from their father and repent. This happened one year after they were initially kicked out.

### Blogging

Artemis began blogging in 2012, and once they were banned from their family, Artemis's blogs became more detailed in their accounts of their abusive childhood. Their original blog was later lost, but internet followers have worked to help them restore much of the early years of content.

In 2014, after coming to the conclusion that homosexuality was acceptable within Christianity, they decided to do a series of blog posts about this. Their father disagreed with this choice and tried to convince them not to post the series. They posted it anyway. Soon after this post, their siblings began to treat them differently, and they learned their parents had told them that they had started blogging liberal propaganda and they were no longer allowed to read their blog. Several of the siblings reached out to Artemis and Lydia, mentioning instances of abuse, only to later recant and say their parents were kind and loving and it was wrong to speak poorly of them.

After a blog post on October 4, 2014, mentioned specific memories of abuse, their father posted an episode of his podcast where he called them delusional and had other children defend him. This episode was met with more negative reactions that Chris likely anticipated, and was deleted after only a few days, but not before a number of bloggers posted about it on their own websites. One blogger went as far as to transcribe the podcast episode in its entirety. Artemis and their therapist both reported their parents to the local authorities at that time, and while it is unknown what happened after that, many of the younger kids were enrolled in school the following year.

In early 2015, Artemis posted on their blog that their father was offering them money and their choice of a therapist to help them reconcile if they would stop saying that he was abusive and controlling. They did not accept these offers.

### Move to Seattle

In 2015, Artemis moved to Seattle, where they struggled to support themself. They lived out of their car while working at a grocery store and showering at a gym. Due to chronic pain and PTSD from their childhood, they are no longer able to work on their feet and now focus on their writing.

In June of that year, Artemis realized that they no longer believed in Christianity, and wrote about how they came to this on their blog.

### Sexual Orientation and Identity

On April 17, 2015, Artemis publicly came out as bisexual on their blog.. As of 2021, they came out as transgender, specifically non-binary, and now use the name Artemis Stardust.

## Family

Artemis has been in several relationships with their last being a polyamorous relationship where they met their current partner, Ryann Beaufort.

As of 2022, Artemis is currently in a relationship with Ryann Beaufort who is also non-binary. Their pronouns are they/them.

On September 30, 2022, Artemis announced that they were engaged to their partner Ryann Beaufort.

## Resume

### Education

Artemis began taking courses at a local college when they was 19. After five semesters, the academic and financial struggles grew to be too much to handle, and they dropped out. They also held some sort of part-time job during this time, and moved to full-time after dropping out.

### Television Appearances

Artemis was featured in the second episode of the TLC show *Kids by the Dozen.* This episode, which first aired on January 22, 2007, focused on the Jeub family as one of six mega-families profiled by the one-season show. TLC film crews spent only nine days in the Jeub house to film the episode, which Artemis has spoken about as being brief enough to keep up appearances of being a happy family.

On November 10, 2009, We-TV released an episode of the show *The Secret Lives of Women* titled "Born to Breed". This episode featured the Jeub family, including Artemis's seventeenth birthday celebration. The family was led to believe they were filming a CBS show that was highlighting Quiverfull families in a positive light, and were upset to learn that this was not the case.

### Training Minds Ministry

Starting at the age of 13, Artemis worked for their father's ministry. Their duties included editing the speech and debate curriculum, providing customer service, overseeing different accounts related to the ministry, and helping manage camps and conferences.

### Political Work

Artemis worked for James O'Keefe in 2012, trying to help do sting operations. They have expressed that they were not very good at this work, but was able to learn a lot from it.

At some point they shadowed a Congresswoman from Colorado.

### Grocery Store Deli

Artemis worked at a grocery store in the deli for a short time after moving to Seattle in 2015. They are back in this job now.

### Writing Career

In 2008, Artemis co-authored a cookbook, *Love in the Kitchen*, with their mother. In 2009 they released a second volume. They made a deal with their father to get their name on the second book in return for not being paid royalties, a deal they thought was fair at 15.

Artemis is currently a writer. They earn supporters through their blog and give interviews on their abusive childhood.

*profile photo credit*

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cynthia-jeub-kids-by-the-dozen\_n\_5c798c1be4b0e5e313ca43e0
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://cynthiajeub.com/2014/10/03/melting-memory-masks/
3. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2015/05/18/children-are-peopleand-people-are-children/
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://cynthiajeub.com/2016/02/01/7-year-cycles-and-time-perception/
5. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2014/11/10/when-a-child-is-taught-to-hate-my-version-of-the-alicia-story-part-1/
6. ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjeub/
7. ↑ https://jeub.wordpress.com/category/jeubkids/cynthia/page/1/
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 https://cynthiajeub.com/2014/11/19/she-doesnt-smile-much/
9. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2020/01/01/the-perfect/
10. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2018/02/19/the-archive-restoration-project/
11. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2015/01/05/identifying-manipulative-abuse-tactics/
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 https://cynthiajeub.com/2015/01/07/stop-saying-were-keeping-your-siblings-from-you/
13. ↑ https://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2014/10/13/four-reasons-why-i-believe-cynthia-jeub/
14. ↑ https://www.intouchweekly.com/posts/kids-by-the-dozen-star-cynthia-jeub-opens-up-about-alleged-child-abuse-44230/
15. ↑ https://thelittlefighterthatcould.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/transcript-of-chris-jeubs-podcast/
16. ↑ https://chrisjeub.com/our-first-day-of-school-after-23-years-of-homeschooling/
17. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2015/06/10/how-christianity-became-just-another-religion-to-me/
18. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2015/04/17/purity-culture-and-my-sexuality/
19. ↑ https://givebutter.com/BQXyXN?fbclid=IwAR0QXrJhj51bT7oOVF0Rm4e4ZYtfQ5LC0QGDZBh-CHxJ2smWpBiz2tZmsy0
20. ↑ https://givebutter.com/BQXyXN?fbclid=IwAR0QXrJhj51bT7oOVF0Rm4e4ZYtfQ5LC0QGDZBh-CHxJ2smWpBiz2tZmsy0
21. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2022/09/30/im-engaged/
22. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2018/08/26/podcast-transcript-the-deleted-confession/
23. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1077724/?ref\_=nv\_sr\_1
24. ↑ https://jeub.wordpress.com/2006/09/30/reflections-on-our-tlc-experience/#more-27
25. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2014/11/17/born-to-breed/
26. ↑ https://chrisjeub.com/those-homeschool-apostates/
27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 https://cynthiajeub.com/2015/02/27/how-i-got-burned-out-on-current-events-and-politics-by-age-19/
28. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2019/12/05/okay-im-back/
29. ↑ https://cynthiajeub.com/2014/11/05/the-love-label/