Counting On’s Derick Dillard and Jill Duggar ‘Weren’t Allowed’ to Announce Their Own Life Events

He’s thrown shade at the show before, but now Derick Dillard is revealing he wasn’t even “allowed” to share his own engagement or baby news while filming 19 Kids & Counting and Counting On. In a new interview published Friday, March 27, the TLC alum opened up about the experience he and wife Jill Dillard (née Duggar) shared while filming the show. One of his revelations included the claim that all of their personal news had to go through official channels.

“We weren’t even allowed to be the first ones to announce our own life events — our marriage, expecting our baby, our genders of our children, our births — not by our own choice,” Derick, 31, said in an interview with the Without a Crystal Ball YouTube channel. “If I had to do it all over again, I would’ve announced myself when we were expecting and things like that, even if I would’ve gotten in trouble.”

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The father of two has opened up in the past about how filming affected his relationship with his in-laws. It seems this was just another way he and Jill, 28, felt out of control when it came to their own lives. “Your family relationships are affected to this extent that you are on board with the family business,” he said.

In the interview, which YouTube vlogger Katie Joy conducted over email and presented to fans in a video, Derick revealed he’s decided to start speaking out in order to clear up “misconceptions” fans have about his family. Some of the topics he addressed were whether or not he thinks wearing pants is immodest (he doesn’t), if he and Jill think drinking is a sin (they don’t) and how he feels about the LGBTQ community (he has a close friend who’s gay). But he also wanted to share that he and his wife have been putting in a lot of work to heal from the experience of being on the show and filming against their will.

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“There’s definitely been some ups and downs over the past several years, but we’ve been seeing a licensed counselor, which has helped a lot,” he said, according to Katie. “God has answered our prayers and has used this to help us work through the pain and stress and grow closer together as a couple.”