Courtesy of Jill Duggar/Instagram
Jill Duggar Dillard Says TLC Shows Nearly Ruined Derick Dillard Marriage: ‘A Lot of Frustration’
Jill Duggar claimed that starring on reality shows with her family nearly ruined her marriage to Derick Dillard.
“It caused a lot of frustration in our marriage,” Jill, 32, told People in an interview published on Wednesday, September 6. “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.'”
The former TLC personality added that she continued to appear on 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On because Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) followers believe they must obey her parents’ orders. After claiming the lesson was drilled into her head, Jill admitted it was hard for her to say no to Jim Bob Duggar’s demands that she film the show.
“It definitely got between us,” she said about how starring on the shows impacted her marriage to Derick, 34. “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. That could be buying a house, moving to a different state, where to go to school. 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.”
Both Jill and Derick agreed that Jim Bob, 58, tried to drive a wedge between them.
“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,” Derick claimed. “He would weaponize the relationship and say, ‘Is this you Jill, or is this you, Derek? Are you leading your wife astray and doing things that are not supportive of marriage?’ And I think that was a red flag.”
Jill added that the tension grew so much that she felt like she had to choose between Jim Bob, her mother, Michelle Duggar, and Derick.
“I saw how deeply we were in an argument one time, and I was like, ‘Whoa, this is not okay,'” she said, recalling disagreements she and Derick had about appearing on the show. “When I saw how it was affecting our marriage, I think that was another wake-up call for me,” she adds. “It was like, okay, we need to either fight this battle together, or it’s going to rip us apart. So yeah, we had to join forces at that point.”
Jill and Derick stopped appearing on Counting On in 2017. Derick was allegedly fired from the show after he made transphobic comments about fellow TLC star Jazz Jennings. However, the lawyer insisted it was his decision to leave the network and Jill joined him in support.
While appearing in Amazon Prime Video’s Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets in June, the couple revealed they parted ways with TLC when they could not negotiate fair pay with Jim Bob.
The Duggar patriarch allegedly offered Jill and Derick $10 an hour to film in addition to a lump sum that was close to minimum wage. While the pair wanted to negotiate the pay, Jim Bob and Michelle’s lawyer, Chad Gallagher, told them they were not allowed to talk to the network without him present. In order to receive the pay, Jill and Derick needed to sign a new contract that gave her father even more control. The parents of three said they refused to sign the contract and ultimately left TLC.
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