‘Counting On’: How Will Joy-Anna Duggar and Austin Forsyth Make Money Now That They Have Quit Reality TV?
Counting On star Joy-Anna Duggar has literally grown up on television. Back in 2004 when the very first Duggar TV special aired, Joy-Anna was just six -years-old. But now, she is a 22-year-old married woman who has a toddler and is expecting her second baby any day now.
Joy-Anna Duggar was not featured in the Season 11 promo
When TLC shared the trailer for season 11 of Counting On — along with the promotional photos — fans quickly noticed a big change. For the first time since the 19 Kids & Counting spin-off was launched five years ago, Joy-Anna wasn’t included as a main cast member of the series.
Neither Joy-Anna nor her husband, Austin Forsyth, were part of the promotional photoshoot, leading fans to assume that the couple had left the show. However, when the first two episodes aired, Joy-Anna and Austin did make appearances with their two-year-old son, Gideon.
The big difference was that Duggar and Forsyth were simply part of group gatherings, and there was no focus on their family’s storyline. This is quite telling because the couple is expecting a baby in early August.
The show is following the pregnancies of Lauren Swanson and Abbie Grace Burnett, so Joy-Anna being on the sidelines made it clear to many fans that she had left the cast of Counting On.
The Duggar family remains mum on Joy-Anna’s exit from ‘Counting On’
Joy-Anna Duggar and Austin Forsyth have not made an official statement about their assumed exit from the reality show. But Jill Duggar’s husband, Derick Dillard, did confirm that Joy-Anna and Austin were no longer filming.
“We quit filming, not family life,” Dillard said, in response to a comment on TLC’s Instagram post about the show featuring a family game night. “Joy and Austin also quit filming, but they were there.”
Jill and Derick left Counting On in 2017 after his homophobic Twitter rant against fellow TLC star Jazz Jennings. Since then, Dillard has been extremely vocal on social media about what goes on behind the scenes on Counting On.
Dillard has claimed that the family patriarch, Jim Bob Duggar, keeps all of the TLC money instead of dividing it equally among his family members. And, Derick also revealed that he and Jill need Jim Bob’s permission to visit the Duggar family home in Arkansas.
“I think he’s mainly worried about the influence we might have on his children,” Dillard told The Sun.
Life after ‘Counting On’
In the past few months, Joy-Anna and Austin have been starting to build their own brand independent of Counting On. The couple has launched their own YouTube channel titled Follow the Forsyths. They also split their joint Instagram page into two separate accounts for Joy and Austin, respectively.
Instead of going through official TLC social media channels, the couple did their gender reveal on their own platforms.
Social media is definitely an area where Joy-Anna and Austin can earn some cash. But their main source of income at the moment appears to be “building, renovating, and flipping” houses.
It doesn’t appear that Joy-Anna and Austin have the same beef with Jim Bob that Derick and Jill. Instead, Joy-Anna and Austin are just ready to move on to the next part of their lives.
New episodes of Counting On air Tuesday nights on TLC.
