As the release of her highly anticipated memoir grows closer, Jill Duggar is sharing more behind-the-scenes details of her explosive feud with parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. In a new interview with People, Jill revealed that the feud almost ended her marriage to husband Derick Dillard because of how often they were fighting about the filming of the family's reality show, Counting On — and it sounds like things were worse than we thought they were to push them to this point.
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Jill said the show 'definitely got between' her and Derick.
Jill spent most of her childhood on reality TV, starring in her family's TLC series, 19 Kids & Counting, before taking on a bigger role in Counting On. But when she and Derick walked away from the show in 2017, the feud with her parents had reached a fever pitch, as Jill told People that she was still expected to obey Jim Bob and Michelle even though she was a grown woman with a family and children of her own.
"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 explained. "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."
Jim Bob tried to turn them against each other in their arguments.
"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 said in the interview. "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."
According to Jill, they didn't just argue about filming with her dad — there were also fights about his refusal to pay them for their work on the show, which eventually resulted in Jill and Derick seeking legal help to get what they were owed.
Jill said seeing how their fights affected her marriage was a 'wake-up call.'
"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," she said.
For them, that meant going to therapy together, which she called "the gift we didn't know we needed."
"We initially went into it with the goal of re-establishing a relationship with my parents, but once we go there, the therapist was like, 'I think we maybe need to do a little more processing, a little more sorting out here. You guys need to figure out who you are.' Which was so wise. It helped us so much," she added.
Jill says she wanted to write this book to help her younger siblings.
Although her sister, Jinger Duggar, is the only sibling who has been public about walking away from the Institute in Basic Life Principles, the religion that the family was raised in, Jill seems to believe that more may follow.
"I know there will be nay-sayers, but I feel called to do this. We really wanted to tell our story for my siblings, because some of them are going to face similar challenges, if they haven't already, to what I've faced," she said.
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Jim Bob and Michelle have issued a comment to People.
Jill's parents responded to the interview in a statement to the magazine.
"We love all of our children very much. As with any family, few things are more painful than conflicts or problems among those you love … We do not believe the best way to resolve conflicts, facilitate forgiveness and reconciliation, or to communicate through difficulties is through the media or in a public forum so we will not comment," the statement read.
