Jinger Vuolo Passed on ‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’ Over Editing Concerns

Jinger Vuolo has been outspoken about untangling her faith from the IBLP, the religious ministry she grew up in. Vuolo has been so candid in recent years that Duggar family followers were shocked when she didn’t turn up in Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, the Amazon docuseries that explored the ministry and its poster family. Some followers theorized that Jinger Vuolo opted not to appear in Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets to keep the peace in her family. That’s not the case. Recently, Jinger opened up about why she decided to opt out of the docuseries. It is all about being able to tell her own story. 

Jinger Vuolo just revealed why she didn’t appear in ‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’ 

In a recent YouTube upload, Jinger Vuolo and Jeremy Vuolo sat down to discuss Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. Jinger and Jeremy did not appear in the series, but they haven’t discussed their reasoning at length until now. In the YouTube upload, Jinger revealed that she decided not to appear in the docuseries because she was concerned about how her words would be edited. After growing up on TV and not having control of the final product, Jinger is at a place where she’d prefer to maintain control over her own story. 

While Vuolo passed on the docuseries, other family members did not. Jill Dillard and her husband, Derick Dillard, were heavily featured in the series. Amy Duggar King, her mother, Deanna Duggar, and Duggar King’s husband, Dillon King, appeared, as well. Deanna Duggar is Jim Bob Duggar’s only sibling. Amy Duggar King is Deanna’s only child. Aside from the listed Duggars, several Duggar family friends also sat down for the docuseries. Jim and Bobye Holt, former longtime family friends of the Duggars, were interviewed for the Amazon Studios original. 

Jinger Vuolo was a fan of the docuseries despite not being involved with it 

Vuolo opted not to appear in the docuseries because she wanted to control her own narrative. Still, that doesn’t mean she was against the series being made. The Los Angeles resident revealed in her video that the depiction of the IBLP and Bill Gothard was disturbing but, ultimately, truthful. 

Vuolo has been an outspoken critic of the IBLP and Bill Gothard despite opting out of the docuseries that her sister agreed to participate in. She noted in her video that the isolation Gothard’s program encouraged was incredibly damaging. Vuolo previously appeared on Mayim Bialik’s podcast, Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown. During the chat, Bialik suggested Vuolo might have suffered from religious OCD as a child. Vuolo didn’t seem totally opposed to the suggestion.