Jinger Duggar Vuolo has opened up about why she declined to participate in an explosive new documentary series examining her reality TV family’s ties to an ultraconservative, widely criticized religious ministry.
In an interview with People magazine published Monday, Duggar Vuolo confirmed that she was approached and asked to appear in the Prime Video docuseries “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets,” but opted to release her memoir, “Becoming Free Indeed,” instead.
Duggar Vuolo’s third book details her experiences growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family with connections to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a religious organization known for promoting the submission of women and girls under absolute male authority. She is the sixth child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, whose family rose to prominence on the TLC reality series “19 Kids and Counting” and its short-lived spinoff “Counting On,” the latter of which excluded her brother Josh Duggar, who was convicted in 2021 on child pornography charges.
“I really wanted to make sure that I was able to share my story in my own words and in my own timing,” Duggar Vuolo, 29, told People.
“That’s why I wrote ‘Becoming Free Indeed’ … to share more of my journey out of IBLP’s teachings. I wanted to be able to share it in a way that was, like, God-honoring and hopefully sharing my story in a balanced way.”
In her memoir, Duggar Vuolo recalls how she was forced to obey modesty guidelines, submit completely to her parents and other authority figures, adhere to strict premarital protocols and refrain from listening to certain kinds of music.
“I thought, ‘I want this to be my story in a book form because then whenever people are trying to work through this stuff, they can go back and highlight,’ and (go), ‘Oh, she was struggling with this too. This is how Jinger kind of walked through it,’” Duggar Vuolo said.
The Duggar family has not only come under scrutiny for its fealty to the IBLP.
“19 Kids and Counting” was canceled in 2015 after Josh Duggar was accused of molesting four of his younger sisters as a teen. In 2021, he was arrested on child pornography charges, convicted and sentenced in 2022 to 121/2 years in prison.
The 32-year-old author claims in “Shiny Happy People” that she never received compensation for “19 Kids and Counting” or “Counting On” — even after she turned 18.
