‘House of Horrors’ survivor Jordan Turpin has opened up about how her ordeal means she is constantly on the verge of crying – five years after her daring escape.
The 22-year-old spent her entire childhood imprisoned inside her California home with her 12 siblings before she managed to escape through a window in January 2018.
Her parents, David and Louise Turpin, kept their children shackled to their beds at their home in Perrin, starving them and beating them daily.
Jordan, who escaped when she was 17, was asked about her normal day in an interview with Elle and replied: ‘I usually cry’.
She continued: ‘I try to get myself to eat. And then I start to do my makeup, but I cry, so I have to do it over.
The 22-year-old spent her entire childhood imprisoned inside her California home with her 12 siblings before she managed to escape through a window in January 2018
Jordan says the pandemic was particularly tough as lockdowns hit just over a year after her escape
‘And then I try to do a TikTok, but I’m like, ‘Oh, people are going to say this and that about me.’
‘Then I’m like, ‘Maybe I should get some air. I’m gonna go outside’ . . . and then I just cry again.’
Her parents were jailed for life after she raised the alarm, calling 911 and struggling to explain the situation to a police officer.
She started taking classes at a community college and worked at Taco Bell – but struggled to socialize with her co-workers.
Jordan was worried that her life would never improve, with her experience leaving her ‘scared of everyone’.
The influencer said: ‘I was super nice, and I’d always be like, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I am super gentle. They would laugh and be like, ‘Why is she like that?’ I might have been annoying.
‘But I had just gotten out of the foster home, so I was always super kind because I was scared of everyone.’
Jordan (circled) was one of 13 siblings who were abused by David and Louise (center) in their Southern California home
For years, she and her siblings had one meal a day and their diet consisted of nothing but two slices of bread with peanut butter or bologna
Jordan was forced back into a life of isolation during the pandemic, triggering her after her normal life was suspended.
She had only just begun to get used to living outside of her home, and felt like the ‘promised land’ of freedom felt like a ‘tease’ with ‘no escape’.
She added: ‘When everybody started complaining about COVID, we were like, ‘Look at us!’
‘People were like, ‘This is the worst thing ever!’ They could barely handle it when it was only a week. They really don’t know.’
Like many of her generation, she turned to TikTok to connect with others – despite having little understanding of how social media worked.
Jordan gained hundreds of thousands of followers on the app, and began updating people on her life and joining in dance crazes on the app.
On Instagram, where she has over 220,000 followers, she says her dream is to be a motivational speaker one day
The 22-year-old speaks out about life now in the February issue of the glossy magazine while modeling designer threads
She now has almost a million followers and has had to hire a publicist and an agent – who said: ‘She got it very quickly. That’s the thing about Jordan.
‘Even though there are certain parts of society [the Turpin siblings are] all starting to navigate…they’re all very aware of the world. Jordan is really smart.
‘She’s very aware of herself, which is not something that even [a lot of] people who haven’t been through this type of tragedy can say.’
The star is now considering a career in music after meeting Hailey Bieber and TikTok queen Charli D’Ameilo.
But she said she wants to take it slow, adding: ‘Right now, I kind of need a break from my past. I just want to start slowly.’
During her brave escape, she told a responding police officer hat her siblings were chained up because they had tried to steal food.
Along with emotional scars, Jordan says the abuse she endured has had a lasting impact her physical health
Jordan crawled out of a window and called the police using a cell phone in January 2018. She said she walked on the street because she didn’t know about the sidewalks
David and Louise ate fast food in front of their children, who were only allowed one meal per day at one point. They would chain the siblings to filthy beds if they tried to steal food
As she didn’t know what a sidewalk was, she said she walked in the street to get help and managed to come across the cop.
Following David and Louise’s arrests in January 2018, horrific details began to emerge of the extent of torture, abuse and neglect that the children – who ranged in age from two to 29 at the time – suffered.
The parents’ abuse and neglect was so ‘severe, pervasive, and prolonged’ that it stunted their children’s growth, led to muscle wasting and left two of their daughters unable to bear children.
Every child except the two-year-old was severely underweight, with deputies testifying that the children said they could only shower once a year.
They were mainly kept in their rooms except for meals, which had been reduced from three to one per day, a combination of lunch and dinner.
Since being rescued, some of the other children have said that the social services system that was supposed to help them transition to new lives didn’t do what it was supposed to.
She said she is still ‘very, very’ close to her siblings, and makes sure to see them often. She is seen with her sister Jennifer earlier this year
Details later emerged about how the Turpins beat and starved their children, shackling them to beds and denying them basic hygiene like showers
Jordan has racked up more than 920,000 followers on TikTok where she posts regular clips of herself doing popular dances
Some of the children reported they ‘felt betrayed’ by local officials’ handling of their cases, said Melissa Donaldson, Riverside County’s director of victim services.
The kids were threatened with belts and sticks and even told that if they didn’t behave, the parents would chain them to their beds and pull their hair.
Jordan and her sister Jennifer also said that the parents ‘literally’ used the Bible to justify how they treated the siblings.
They loved to point out things in Deuteronomy, saying that, ‘We have the right to do this to you,’ said Jennifer, now 33. ‘That they even had the right to kill us if we didn’t listen.’
For years, the siblings’ diet consisted of nothing but two slices of bread with peanut butter or bologna.
The couple were also accused of taunting their children with pies and other food that they were forbidden to eat.
The evil couple chowed down on fast food in front of them, chaining the children to filthy beds if they tried to steal food.
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