By Mark Gray
2:00pm PST, Dec 15, 2023
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Although she mostly agreed with the premise of "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets," Jinger Duggar Vuolo's decision not to participate in the docuseries came down to editing.
"Once you speak on something, kind of like sit down [and] record something on someone else's platform, then there's little to no editing power," the former "19 Kids and Counting" and "Counting On" star explained on her YouTube channel in December 2023.
She was also unsure about the production company behind the show, on which sister Jill Duggar Dillard and husband Derick Dillard appeared.
Plus, at the time of filming, Jinger was working on her book, "Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear," in which she writes about the "dangers of IBLP" — the Institute of Basic Life Principles.
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Jinger Duggar Vuolo decided "it would be best" to tell her "own story how [she] wanted," she explained on her YouTube channel in December 2023.
"I knew that this was not going to be necessarily a Christian documentary. That was probably one of my bigger concerns about it because I didn't know if it would have a redeeming factor for what actually took place," she said of "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets."
"Those teachings of [Institute of Basic Life Principles founder] Bill Gothard were awful and they were so deceptive because they were mixed. There would be elements of truth from scripture and then it would just take a twist where it was very damaging and so with something like this in a documentary, I was afraid that maybe things wouldn't be handled as I'd want them to be and so that's really why I didn't go on," she explained of why she chose not to participate in the 2023 Amazon Prime Video docuseries.
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Jinger Duggar Vuolo needed the "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets" docuseries to have a "redemptive factor," she explained on her YouTube channel in December 2023, because "that's what will actually help anyone who is stuck in those teachings to come out, or somebody who's been harmed by it to see, man that's not Christianity."
But in the end, the former "19 Kids & Counting" and "Counting On" star felt the 2023 documentary successfully captured the teachings and Bill Gothard.
She understands that people wonder how she could have believed the teachings.
"Once you go back to the start and how Bill Gothard's teachings kind of evolved into this, what was IBLP and what [it] is today — it's wild," she said. "It was quite the journey for all these families and I think they followed that really well — talking about how initially it sounds good. You get in with your family, you have this community, your kids are guarded and sheltered from the world. They're going to turn out perfect. God has this awesome plan for your family to be a light to the nations, to have as many kids as possible, [to] be able to infiltrate a lot of different areas of government."
In regard to those featured on the series who feel that they're victims of the religion, she said, "It was just so heartbreaking to see the pain that they went through and just even them being vulnerable to like, get on 'Shiny Happy People' and share their story. That was really impactful and I'm grateful for those who did and I just think there was so much truth in that documentary that was shared."
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In January 2023, Jinger Duggar Vuolo (seen here with her husband, pastor Jeremy Vuolo) released her book, "Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear," which documented her life as a member of the Institute of Basic Life Principles, which is also known as the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist religion.
"There are a lot of cult-like tendencies" within her family and in the IFB religion, she told People magazine while promoting the book. "Fear was a huge part of my childhood. I thought I had to wear only skirts and dresses to please God. Music with drums, places I went or the wrong friendships could all bring harm."
In IFB, women are taught that they're inferior to men and are encouraged to be subservient to males. Alcohol, dancing and makeup are prohibited, as are high heels and anything shorter than ankle-length dresses.
"[Bill Gothard's] teachings in a nutshell are based on fear and superstition and leave you in a place where you feel like, 'I don't know what God expects of me,'" Jinger said. "The fear kept me crippled with anxiety. I was terrified of the outside world."
