5 Revelations From the Duggar Family Documentary Everyone Is Talking About

For a decade, millions of Americans were glued to the television watching 19 Kids and Counting, a TLC reality show centered around an anything-but-average American family. The show followed Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, members of the ultra-conservative Christian organization, the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), and their growing, seemingly wholesome family. However, over the course of several years, a few spinoff shows, and pregnancy after pregnancy, the show went from "feel good" to felony charges.

In the shocking new Netflix documentary, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, bombshell truths about the church and the Duggar family are finally revealed, with family members and former members telling all the family secrets. 

Jim and Bobye Holt, former IBLP members, were longtime friends of the couple and were interviewed extensively for the docuseries. They revealed that Josh initially had his sights set on marrying their daughter, Kaeleigh, five years before the show debuted during their "courtship" in 2003 the couple learned about the alleged abuse. Josh was 15 at the time. "Josh has gotten into some trouble. You know, he's touched his sisters inappropriately," Jim Bob told Bobye, adding that he had been doing so since he was 12.

When they asked if he was planning on telling them since he was courting their daughter, they confessed they weren't. "We were going to have Josh confess to Kaeleigh once they were married," Jim Bob reportedly said. "So, are you saying you were using my daughter as, like, a carrot to get him to behave the right way?" Jim says he asked him. "And [Jim Bob] goes, "Well, yeah. Kinda." They also maintain he never used the word "molest" when discussing Josh. 

After the allegations against Josh surfaced in 2015, the Duggars were invited to participate in an interview with Megyn Kelly's Fox News program. On the docuseries, Jill maintains she was pressured to appear on the show and support him because her parents were worried the show would be taken off the air. "Our case, it's very mild compared to what happened to some," Jill said on the show. "I'm sad because this is my older brother, who I love — a lot — and I had to make that choice to forgive him. It wasn't something that somebody forced."

However, she regrets going on the show. "In hindsight, I wouldn't have done the Megyn Kelly stuff," Jill said in the documentary. "I don't really like to even talk about [the interview], because it's not something I'm proud of," she said. "If I hadn't felt obligated to, one, do it for the sake of the show and, two, do it for the sake of my parents, I wouldn't have done it." 19 Kids and Counting was taken off the air after the interview and replaced with Jill and Jessa: Counting On.

The night before her June 2014 wedding to Derick, Jim Bob placed a contract on the table and opened it to the signature page. "'Okay, I just need you guys to sign these.' Like, everyone was signing them," Jill recalled. "I didn't know what it was for." Eventually, she learned they were contractually bound to the show for five years. "That's not what I thought I was signing," she said.

They also asked about getting paid, as they maintain they weren't paid a dime for all their time on the show. "Jim Bob said, 'What do you want, $10 an hour?' And I said, 'I don't know. What's it worth?'" Derick said. Jim Bob eventually offered a few of them a "lump sum." However, to get the money, Derick and Jill said maintain they would need to sign another contract with Jim Bob's production company. "It would be like forever," Jill said. "We were automatically like, we're done."

She claims that when she asked TLC for money to pay for her medical expenses from her first child's birth, which was televised, they said they gave the money to the family, which meant Jim Bob. "For seven and a half years of my adult life, I was never paid," she says. 

Jill didn't want the TLC cameras in the room when she gave birth to her first child, but birth shows and weddings were big for ratings. "I knew for sure, I was like, nobody's in my delivery room. Like, nobody. And nobody's there for the labor, watching me. Like, I don't want any of that," Jill said. While she got her way, the couple was forced to shoot "diary cams" for the show.

RELATED: Family in Shock After Pub Manager Found Inside 2 Giant Crocodiles

Josh is currently serving a prison sentence after being found guilty of child pornography charges. However, during the docuseries, Jill reveals he started a boy's club named "BOYCOT," (Boys' Christian Outreach Team.) The group was inspired to start the club when a local convenience store started selling things they thought were sinful.  "I think they started selling…either alcohol or pornography or something like that. And they were like, 'We're gonna boycott them,'" Jill said.