Jill Duggar Dillard is going on the record about her family in a new docuseries titled, “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets,” releasing on Amazon’s Prime Video June 2. The trailer frames the worldview the Duggar children were raised in as part of a broader threat to American democracy—and even the world.
“‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’ is a limited docuseries exposing the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality TV’s favorite mega-family, The Duggars, and the radically controversial organization behind them: The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP),” says a press release from Prime Video. “A number of ex-IBLP survivors bravely come forward and reveal the abusive practices that kept them in a living nightmare.”
RELATED: Gwen Shamblin Lara Accused of Being a Cult Leader in New HBO Docuseries
“For the first time, Jill Duggar Dillard will go on the record with her own story and be joined by family and close family friends who witnessed what went on behind the scenes firsthand,” the press release continues. “While details of the family and their scandals unfold, we realize they’re part of an insidious, much-larger threat already in motion, with democracy itself in peril.”
Jill Duggar Dillard Wants To Tell Her Story
“There is a story that’s going to be told, and I would rather be the one telling it,” said Jill Duggar Dillard, commenting in the docuseries trailer on her decision to speak to the show’s creators. Dillard’s husband, Derick Dillard, and cousin, Amy King, also appear in the docuseries.
The Duggars are a homeschool family from Arkansas who were featured in TLC’s reality show, “19 Kids and Counting” (2008-2015) and in the spin off, “Counting On” (2015-2020). Dillard is the fourth of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s 19 children.
TLC canceled “19 Kids and Counting” after news broke that Jim Bob and Michelle’s oldest child, Josh, had molested five girls, including four of his sisters. The network later canceled “Counting On” after Josh Duggar was charged with receiving and possessing child sex abuse materials. Josh was convicted of those crimes on Dec. 9, 2021, and was sentenced to over 12 years in prison.
The trailer for “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” highlights the Duggars involvement with the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), founded by Bill Gothard. “We were part of IBLP as early as I can remember,” said Dillard. Jim Bob and Michelle’s sixth child, Jinger Duggar Vuolo, recently spoke to ChurchLeaders about Gothard and IBLP while discussing her new memoir, “Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear.”
Vuolo explained that Gothard gained influence during the 1960s and 1970s when parents were concerned about protecting their kids from sex, drugs and rock and roll. He “came on the scene as the man with every answer to every problem in your family and how you could have a family that was set up for success long-term,” she said. “He promised that if you lived by his seven basic life principles, that God would bless your life. And not only would he bless your life, but you would be kept from harm.”
