Jill Duggar's relationship with parents Jim Bob and Michelle has been rocky for years, and it's only now that we're getting the full scope of what's been happening behind the scenes. In the new docuseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, Jill revealed that Jim Bob tricked her into signing a TLC contract, leading her to film a lot of personal moments against her will.
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Jill signed a contract at her dad's insistence moments before her wedding.
Much of Jill's courtship, engagement, and 2014 wedding to Derick Dillard were filmed for TLC, back before 19 Kids & Counting had been canceled, later becoming Counting On. But moments before she was to walk down the aisle, when things were hectic, Jim Bob asked her to sign something in the family's kitchen.
"I just saw the signature page. It was like on the end of the kitchen table — like, 'Hey, I just needed you guys to sign these,'" Jill said in the docuseries, according to the Los Angeles Times. "We were literally running through the kitchen, and it was like whoever you could grab on the way through. I didn’t know what it was for."
They didn't find out until later that signing the paper committed them to five more years of filming.
Jill and Derick wouldn't find out the impact their signatures had on their lives until they were forced to return to the US to film while they were living and working as missionaries in El Salvador.
"My dad sends us the signature page along with just the obligation of the contract. I was like, 'Somebody forged my signature.' That’s when we realized that I had signed this the day before we got married," she said. "That’s not what I thought I was signing."
She also didn't want the birth of her first child to be on camera.
But as fans know now, she lost that battle. Though she didn't want TLC's cameras to be in the room with her when she gave birth to her oldest son, Israel, she compromised by filming footage herself with Derick using cameras and tripods.
"We basically lost, and they’re gonna get what they want," Derick said on the series.
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Jill and Derick were supposed to be compensated for their participation.
According to what they said in the docuseries, Jill and Derick had negotiated for TLC to cover the out-of-pocket costs of Israel's birth, which they did — but the money was sent "to the family" instead of directly to the new family.
"'Pay the family' means we don’t get anything at that point," Derick said.
As we know now, Jill eventually took legal action to get the money she was owed for filming the show from her parents but has said that it barely amounted to minimum wage for her time.
It seems as if a lot of explosive intel is going to come out in this docuseries.
From what we've found out about the docuseries so far, it appears Jill and Derick aren't holding back — something that may not make Jim Bob and Michelle very happy. But at this point, it seems very important to them both to be able to tell their own story on their own terms.
Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets begins streaming June 2 on Amazon Prime Video.
