After watching Netflix's The Program, fans have a lot of questions about Katherine Kubler's father, Ken, who appeared in the series.
The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping is one of the top-rated documentary series on Netflix right now that uncovers the truth about Ivy Ridge, a school for troubled teens. After watching this shocking series, viewers want to know where Robert Lichfield is now and what has happened to some of the other people who were discussed in the documentary, such as Amy Ritchie, who worked at this school and assisted in the management of 'the program'.
Another person who has intrigued fans is Ken Kubler, the father of the director of the series Katherine Kubler. Ken and Katherine's strained relationship was at the heart of the series and intrigued a lot of viewers, but where is Ken Daniel now and what's his relationship with Katherine like now?
In an interview with Today, Katherine explained that even though her dad did decide to pull her out of the program, her relationship with him was still poor and she moved out of his house as soon as she was 18.
"My dad pulled me from the program a few months before I turned 18. As a result, I had this fear hanging over my head that I was going to be sent back if I acted out. So, for those few months before I was 18, I was still a robot, just still living in the program but in my own home," she said. "The day I turned 18, I moved out of the house, bought a car off Craigslist for 350 bucks, got a job delivering pizzas and got an apartment with a friend from the program. I was like, 'Goodbye'."
Katherine also revealed that her father tried to make amends but the pair had a superficial relationship for many years. "I had a very dark year after the program, just trying to readjust to society, learn how to live, and try to heal. My dad was trying to like to make amends, but I was like, 'No, you abandoned me. Like, it’s up'," she said.
"Honestly, before he had pulled me, I was already like, 'The day I turn 18, I’m out of here. I’m never talking to this guy again because he abandoned me.' But then, after a year, all of my friends started going off to college. I was like, 'I don’t want to miss out on that. I don’t want to let the program derail my life more than it already has'," she continued.
"So, I patched things up enough with my dad so that he would pay for film school, because I wanted a real education. I felt like I was owed that. I moved out to LA, and it was nice because it was 3000 miles away. I was able to carry on this kind of superficial relationship with my dad. But don’t get me wrong, I yelled at him many times. It was very frustrating just trying to get him to realise what he put me through," she said.
Speaking about her relationship with her father now, she said that it took her a long time to reconnect with him. "It was a long journey. No parent wants to admit that they were conned or admit that their child was abused. They also really have no framework to understand that places like this could actually exist. So it wasn’t until 2018, when my complex PTSD really started catching up with me, that I cut off contact with him," she said.
"The documentary picks up when I first started resuming contact with my dad, and that was by putting him through his own version of the program of limiting communication and making him earn privileges to move up from going to emails to then a 15-minute phone call once a month to be able to visit me eventually," she said.
In the documentary, it was unclear whether Ken was still married to the woman who encouraged him to send Katherine to Ivy Ridge. However, an interview has revealed they are still together. Speaking to Today, Katherine said of her stepmother, "She is still married to my dad. I have no contact with her, and I won’t."
Ken now has a relationship with his daughter and was seen spending time with both of his daughters as they reunited at the end of the series. Ken is now a grandparent as his daughter Claire had a son in 2017 with her husband.
