Scarlet Hiltibidal’s parents — The author’s religious and conservative upbringing

Scarlet Hiltibidal

Scarlet Hiltibidal is the motivational author of Anxious, He Numbered the Pores on my Face, and Afraid of All the Things. Her honest and self-deprecating books discuss the restoration nature of the Christian religion. As we shall see below, Scarlet’s parents planted the seeds of her strong faith. 

Scarlet was raised by her mother, Victoria Jackson, and adoptive father, Paul Wessel, in Miami-Dade

Scarlet Hiltibidal's parents
@scarlethiltibidal/Instagram

Scarlet Hiltibidal was born to Victoria Jackson and Nisan Mark Eventoff. After their divorce, Victoria married Paul Wessel, who adopted the five-year-old Scarlet. Scarlet grew up alongside her half-sister. She writes in an article titled I Never Wanted to Adopt, But

“Paul Wessel, former SWAT guy, current doting grandfather, and all around wonderful man, adopted me back when I was a bratty little five-year-old who really needed a good daddy.”

Paul and Victoria raised their daughters in a Christian household. In a June 2021 Father’s Day post, Scarlet explained that Paul allowed her to live the life of a typical teenager but warned her of the consequences of sin. She stated:

“When I was a teenager, I’d leave to hang out with my friends or to go on a date, and my dad would stop me and he’d say, ‘Scarlet, remember: All sin leads to heartache.” And he said it so many times. We would joke around what a broken record he was.” 

Victoria grew up in a highly conservative Baptist household in Miami. In an interview with CBN, she praised her father’s attempt to mold his children into complete beings:

“When I was growing up my father was a Baptist deacon and a women’s gymnastics coach and an elementary school physical education teacher. He was trying to make me and my brother perfect – spiritually, mentally, and physically. When I was six the Gospel became clear to me.”

Victoria tried to pass on the lessons she learned from her father to her daughters – and it worked. Scarlet is a fierce believer in the Gospel of Christ and the transformative power of faith. 

Victoria failed to reestablish her entertainment career decades after leaving SNL

Victoria’s father tried to push his kids to gymnastics, but the strict discipline didn’t appeal to Victoria. She preferred the freedom and positivity offered by performing arts, specifically theater productions. Victoria told CBN:

“I started doing theater. In the theater everything was positive. The applause was all positive. If you were too fat, too skinny, or too tall then you were a character actor. Everyone could laugh at you and it was good. If your knee was bent that was ok. And if you slipped and fell everyone would laugh.”

Victoria’s career zenith was during her stint at SNL. She almost received her acting breakthrough when Fox commissioned a show in which George Clooney and Victoria would star as lead actors. However, following a leadership change at Fox, the show was scrapped before it aired.

“It was so amazing,” Victoria talked to CBN about her SNL tenure. “It is really hard to explain. Everything after that is pretty boring. It was an amazing adventure. It was very stressful. It was very competitive. There was a lot of crying. I cried while a lot of other people were cursing.”

After leaving SNL in 1992, Victoria landed several acting roles, none of which ushered in the successful Hollywood career she’d envisioned in her youth. In 2007, she made another attempt at Hollywood success. She told CBN:

“What I really want to be is an airhead on a sitcom. That has been my goal since I was 20 and I have never actually done it. I have done every other thing in the world but that. I just came back to Los Angeles three months ago. I started auditioning again and we will see what the year brings.”

Victoria’s controversial and abrasive brand of politics failed to resonate with voters

Victoria told USA Today that she stumbled into politics after spending most of her life oblivious to the subject. She told the outlet that she registered as a Republican in her late teens because her father said they were closer to the Bible than Democrats.

After learning more about conservatism and its ideals, Victoria became a controversial and abrasive political activist: she spread Islamophobia on her website, called for the restriction of abortion rights, and protested against LGBTQ+ rights. 

In August 2012, Victoria rubbished the notion that rape can lead to pregnancy. “I’ve actually never known anyone who get pregnant from being raped,” she said on SiriusXM’s OutQ radio program. Victoria added:

“And guess what? If I got raped, I would have the baby. And if I didn’t want to keep it because I had these [mocking tone] horrible nightmares, I would adopt it out. But I think that God can turn a bad thing into a good thing. And that, if I got raped and a beautiful baby who was innocent was born out of it, that would be a blessing.”

Extreme right-wing politics has worked for some politicians but not for Victoria Jackson. In 2014, she ran unsuccessfully for two District 2 seats in Williamson County, Tennessee. 

Victoria and her husband, Paul, spread the conservative agenda via her YouTube page. Per The New York Daily News, Victoria protested against the holding of a Gay Pride parade in Franklin, Tennessee. 

“God hates sodomy, he hates homosexuality,” she said, per the April 2023 report. “And god hates pride, like, one of the things he hates most is pride.”