Jill Duggar talked about how reality TV influenced her marriage, claiming that her family’s TLC show caused major problems in her relationship with her husband Derick Dillard.
“It caused a lot of frustration in our marriage,” Duggar, 32, said in an interview with People that came out on September 6th. She added, “Especially early on, where he would feel a certain way about filming something. I’d be like, ‘I hear you, I feel you, I also don’t want to do whatever it is they’re asking us to do either. But we have to.’”
Duggar appeared on the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting, which aired from 2008 to 2015, and Counting On, which ended in 2020. Dillard, who married Duggar in 2014, appeared in the latter series with his wife, but they decided to leave the show in 2017.
Jill said that filming the show began to come “between” her and Dillard, 34, and created tension with her dad, Jim Bob Duggar. “No matter your age, you are to obey your parents’ wishes and you even have to ask them for their blessing for any major moment in your life.” She also added, “We were dealing with this a lot when we were trying to make decisions for our family, and we were really wrestling back and forth with it.”
Jill and her husband now suspect Jim Bob, 58, was attempting to ruin their marriage by encouraging them to film when they didn’t want to. “Whenever we were at odds with what her dad thought we should be doing with filming, he would say things that would be very damaging,” Dillard stated. “He would weaponize the relationship and say, ‘Is this you, Jill, or is this you, Derick? Are you leading your wife astray and doing things that are not supportive of marriage?’ And I think that was a red flag.”
Jill is preparing for the release of her new memoir, Counting the Cost, which enters stores on Tuesday, September 12. The book’s promo copy claims that Jill will reveal the “unedited truth” about her family, which has been plagued by scandals over the years.