TLC Blurs Out Jill Duggar’s Kids in Recent Episode of ‘Counting On’
It’s been years since Jill Duggar and her husband Derick Dillard left Counting On. The family quit — or was fired, depending on who you ask — from the TLC series in 2017. And it doesn’t seem like they’ll be coming back anytime soon. Derick has made it clear their experience on the show wasn’t a positive one. And in a recent episode, the network went so far as to blur out the faces on Derick and Jill’s children in a Duggar family photo.
The Duggar kids planned a special Christmas gift for their parents
It was Christmas in August in the August 25 episode of Counting On. After getting into the holiday spirit with an ugly sweater party, sister Jana and Jessa Duggar decided to organize a last-minute holiday pageant. After the performance, they presented their parents Jim Bob and Michelle with a special gift.
“We’ve been working on this gift for my parents for a few weeks now and trying to figure out a time to give it to them,” Jessa said. “And we thought, ‘Hey, we’re going to have all the grandkids and most of the kids here together and so we should just pull this thing out right now.”
The present was a pair of large photos of all the Duggar grandchildren to date. Both Michelle and Jim Bob seemed touched by the gesture. “Our greatest joy is to watch our children have children,” Michelle said.
Jill Duggar’s kids were blurred out in the episode
The two canvas prints featured black-and-white photos of all 16 Duggar grandkids (two more have been born since). But in the episode, a couple of the kids weren’t visible. Jill and Derick’s two sons, Sam and Israel, were blurred out.
It’s not clear exactly why Jill’s children were censored on the show. But we do know that her husband Derick has been a vocal critic of TLC and his wife’s family since he left Counting On. In a series of comments on a post on TLC’s official Instagram from July, he said Jim Bob “humiliated and threatened” him and Jil when they tried to exit the reality series. He also said the show “messed up my family.”
Given Derick’s feelings about TLC and his father-in-law, there’s a good chance the network didn’t have permission from the boys’ parents to show them on Counting On.
Did Michelle Duggar crop Jill out of a family photo?
The blurring of Israel and Sam’s images wasn’t the first time a Duggar has have been erased from a photo. When Michelle shared some pictures from Joy-Anna Duggar’s recent baby shower, some people noticed that although Jill appeared in the first photo in the slideshow, she appeared to have been cropped out of one of the others. Fans cried foul, but Michelle said there was no slight meant.
“You can only fit so many in a square photo! Wanted to include some of the grandkids too!” Michelle replied.
On August 25, Michelle shared an up-close look at the pictures of the grandchildren from the Counting On episode. Sam and Israel weren’t blurred in that post, suggesting that whatever rift might exist between Jill and Derick and her parents doesn’t extend to the grandkids.
