I have 12 kids and quit my job to be a dadfluencer – trolls call me a benefit scrounger but I make life-changing money

A DAD-OF-12 has lifted the lid on his family’s journey to become social media stars. Ben, 51, and Zoe Sullivan, 48, and their 12 kids make up one of the Scotland’s largest households. The Sullivans are one of Scotland’s biggest families Credit: The Sullivan Family Ben Sullivan became a dad-of-12 after Florence was born in 2022 Credit: The Sullivan Family The couple are parents to Elisabeth, 21, Olivia, 19, Noah, 16, Evangeline, 14, Tobias, 13, Agnes, eight, Joseph, seven, Florence, four, and two sets of twins – Charlotte and Isabelle, 18, and Leah and Erin, 10. They live in a six-bedroom council house in Burghead, Moray, where they regularly document their hectic lives on their YouTube channel. Sign up for the Fabulous newsletter Thank you! Since launching their social media page in 2018, the bumper brood have racked up almost 15m views and 26,000 subscribers. They decided to give strangers an inside peek at their bustling home life after appearing on Channel 5 show, Me and My 10 Kids, as well as ITV and BBC documentaries. At the time, Ben still worked for the RAF and considered YouTube as a hobby. In a recent video, he said: “I think we were six years before we were properly earning money on YouTube. “You have to be genuine to yourself and you have to be comfortable with what you’re happy filming. “All of that time is like a developmental phase. You’re looking at your channel, you’re looking at your artwork, you’re looking at your content, you’re becoming more experienced, you’re learning what’s right, what’s wrong, what works, what doesn’t. Most read in Fabulous “You’re building a community around you. That’s the most important thing…because if you don’t build that community around you who enjoy watching your videos and everything like that, then you don’t have a channel really.” Before they started to earn “life-changing” money through their channels, Ben worked full-time for the RAF while Zoe was a stay-at-home mum running the household and doing school pick ups. Fast forward eight years, they both consider social media as their jobs and homeschool their younger children, which forms part of their ‘day in our life’ vlogs. For anyone considering a YouTube channel, Ben insists: “Just go for it. You’ve got nothing to lose. “Honestly, if you really, really want an opportunity to change your life, you have to do it. Nobody else can do it for you. You have to do it. “If you want your channel to be successful, you have to put the leg work in. You have to be consistent. “We put six blogs out a week, you know, and obviously one live a month.” But with their success comes harsh, unwarranted criticism. “Inevitably, as you get larger, your channel gets more popular, you end up attracting our good old friend, the troll”, Ben sighs. “They’re there every single day. It’s something that you just have to get used to. “We have been accused of all kinds of things. We have had the police called on us. We have had social services called on us. Environmental health called on us. We have had everything. “ We’ve had letters, we’ve had emails. All because we’re trying to step away from the norm. We’re trying to do something to better our lives. And people can’t stand it. “We got laughed at. We got sniggered at. We got people taking the piss out of us because we started a YouTube channel.” The couple are also accused of being benefit scroungers who need to get jobs. But Ben has revealed they bring in the same money as when he was working full-time. He said: “I have to tell you guys that at this point right now, I have replaced my RAF income with YouTube.That’s how far we’ve come. “So that’s my RAF pension, everything else, what we earn on Facebook and TikTok with the hours that Zoe puts in with her videos and everything, you know, we have replaced my RAF income. “I think I work harder now than I’ve ever worked.” He added: “It’s changed my life. It’s allowed me to be at home with the kids, out walking, filming, vlogging, whatever you want. “I’m with Zoe in the daytime. We’re at home. It is worth it, and now we’ve got the potential to keep growing.” We told earlier how the Sullivans are planning to leave Scotland to move to Cornwall, their hometown. The life-altering decision comes after Zoe lost her mum Audrey to cancer in February. Comment now