Has TLC Found the New Duggar Family? Meet the de la Mottes of ‘Big City, Big Family’
Another extra-large family is coming to TLC. The cable network known for bringing the controversial Duggar family to prominence has announced a new special featuring another conservative clan. The de la Mottes are a family of 13 who’ve traded the California suburbs for the lively streets of New York City. They’ll share their story in the upcoming 1-hour special Big City, Big Family.
‘Big City, Big Family’ airs Feb. 25
Mark and Amber de la Motte are the proud parents of 11 kids. They’ve moved to Manhattan so that their children can study music. But raising such a large family in the Big Apple is a challenge.
“As they juggle their growing family, a new lifestyle, and the challenges of busking together on the streets, the de la Mottes are finding that the fast-paced city life is both exhilarating and overwhelming,” reads TLC’s description of the special. “With worldly influences at every corner and mounting pressure to make it in the city that never sleeps, they’ll have to adapt fast — or risk losing the closeness they’ve worked so hard to build.”
Big Family, Big City premieres Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on TLC.
Meet the de la Motte family
So, who are the de la Mottes? Mark and Amber have been together for more than two decades, and their children range in age from 22 to 1 year: Josiah, Pearl, Elijah, Naomi, Noah, Anna, Chloe, Enoch, Melody, Moses, and Neta. All of the older kids are avid musicians. Pearl and Elijah are students at Julliard, and Josiah, who recently got married, studies at the Manhattan School of Music.
With their upcoming special, the de la Mottes join a long list of large, often-conservative families featured on TLC. The Duggars are the best known. The family of fundamentalist Christians starred in 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On until eldest son Josh Duggar was exposed as a sex predator. The TLC lineup has also included the Plaths of Welcome to Plathville, who performed music together as a family as well as individually, and the Willis Family, who had a short-lived TLC show about their family band before father Toby Willis was sentenced to 40 years in prison for child rape. Other large families with past and present shows on the network include the Derricos (Doubling Down With the Derricos), the Roloffs (Little People, Big World), the Johnstons (7 Little Johnstons), the Busbys (OutDaughtered), and the Waldrops (Sweet Home Sextuplets).
In a 2023 interview with the Free Press, the de la Mottes said that even though they had a lot of kids, their views weren’t extreme. The family attended a “culty” church affiliated with the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement in San Diego, Amber admitted. But their current church is not as strict, they said.
“It’s a standard Christian nondenominational church,” Mark shared. “We go every week but we never get there on time.”
For more on the entertainment world and exclusive interviews, subscribe to Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s YouTube channel.
