What The Duggar Family Is Like After Being Canceled On TLC

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What The Duggar Family Is Like After Being Canceled On TLCWhat The Duggar Family Is Like After Being Canceled On TLC

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00:00The cast of Counting On is moving on, and in the case of the Duggar and Dillard families,

00:05they may be moving apart. Here's what's happened to the Counting On clan since the series cancellation.

00:11Duggar viewers are well aware of the scandal that ended it all. In April 2021, the eldest Duggar

00:17child, 33-year-old Josh, was arrested on charges of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse

00:23material. He posted bond and was released, and has spent the intervening months hiding out at

00:28the rural Arkansas home of some close family friends. Why not at his own home? Because,

00:33according to the Daily Mail, a judge ordered him not to be in the presence of his six children

00:38without his wife, Anna, present, and not to be in the presence of any other children at all.

00:43Kind of an impossible order to follow when you live on Duggar grounds.

00:46In late September 2021, Josh was seen for the first time since his April arrest. People reported

00:52that he was photographed leaving court after a judge denied several motions filed by his legal team.

00:58to suppress evidence as well as one motion to have the case dismissed entirely.

01:03Josh has pled not guilty to both charges leveled against him. He would face up to 20 years in

01:08prison and a $250,000 fine for each count if convicted, for a possible sentence of 40 years.

01:15His trial is scheduled to begin in November 2021.

01:19While the charges leveled against Josh Duggar may be enough to break up most marriages,

01:24the Sun reported that Anna, his wife of over a decade, was standing by him. An unnamed inside

01:30source told the outlet that Anna had practically moved into the home of Josh's close family friend.

01:35Anna was allegedly struggling with Josh's arrest and placing blame on everyone, from parents Jim

01:41Bob and Michelle to the Biden administration, for the trouble he's in. Unsurprisingly, this finger

01:47pointing has led to some tensions within the extended family. The Sun alleges that Anna has had a

01:52falling out with the Duggar parents, and has essentially isolated herself from various

01:57members of the Klan, refusing to speak to them. She reportedly believes that if they had handled

02:02his first molestation scandal better, he wouldn't be in trouble again. A rep for the family declined

02:07to comment on whether or not the reports of family discord are true.

02:12Things haven't been all bad in the Duggar universe since their TV time was cut short. Beyond the courtroom,

02:17there's been plenty to celebrate, including the marriage of Jed Duggar and his new wife Katie.

02:22In April 2021, the couple surprised fans by walking down the aisle. According to Jed's Instagram post,

02:28they'd been quietly courting for about a year before taking the plunge. He wrote,

02:32"'Katy, the thought of sharing the rest of my life with you makes me the happiest man in the world.'"

02:37It seems Jim Bob and Michelle were on board with the union, writing on the family Instagram account,

02:42"'We are overjoyed about adding a new daughter in love to our family.'"

02:46This was the first Duggar wedding that was truly private. There seemingly wasn't a camera crew or

02:51a single member of the paparazzi present to document the day. This just goes to demonstrate

02:56how much has changed for the family since their headline-dominating heyday.

03:01Weddings aren't the only way the Duggars are growing their already massive family. They're adding

03:05grandchildren, of course. Five months after they tied the knot, Jed and Katie Duggar announced they were

03:11expecting, captioning their Instagram photo,

03:13"'She tested positive, but not for COVID.'"

03:16The couple seems to be over the moon about their, quote,

03:18"'almost instantaneous conception,' as they called it on YouTube. However, critics,

03:23including Katie Joy of Without a Crystal Ball, were less than thrilled about the way the couple

03:28shared the news, calling the COVID joke both tasteless and insensitive. Jed and Katie's baby,

03:33due in spring 2022, joins a host of other Duggar grandbabies, including Jessa and Ben Seawald's

03:40addition, a daughter named Fern. Born in July 2021, right after Counting On was canceled,

03:46Fern was an unexpected but happy surprise for the couple, who had suffered a pregnancy loss

03:51just months earlier. Eldest daughter-in-law, Anna, also announced she was pregnant with her seventh

03:56child, a little girl, in spring 2021.

03:59Not all baby news has been happy news in the Duggar family. In October 2021, Jill Dillard announced on

04:05her Instagram page that she'd suffered a miscarriage. In the one-minute video clip,

04:10Jill and her husband Derek emotionally await pregnancy test results and tell their two children,

04:15Israel and Samuel, that they'd be getting a little sibling. Then,

04:19they quickly find out that they were miscarrying. On their family blog, the Dillards shared more

04:23information, writing that they'd miscarried only a few days after the final video clip was filmed.

04:29The couple has been open in the past about the fact that they use birth control,

04:32which is a very un-Duggar practice.

04:34We use birth control, but we prefer to use non-hormonal birth control methods,

04:42and just because we don't want to use anything that could potentially cause an abortion.

04:46In a 2020 YouTube Q&A about the topic, they told fans that they did want to have more kids someday.

04:52Here's to hoping more little Dillards arrive soon.

04:55Though news of Jill and Derek Dillard's split with the rest of the Duggar family broke years before

05:00counting on was canceled in June 2021, it seems the breach hasn't been mended just yet.

05:06The details of the initial falling out have always been fuzzy, with the Dillards themselves

05:11never confirming exactly what led to the rift, only saying on their YouTube channel,

05:15"'We're not on the best terms with some of my family. We've had some disagreements and stuff,

05:20but we're working toward healing, definitely, and restoration.'"

05:23Judging by some comments from the couple, it seems that healing and restoration may not be going very well.

05:29They wrote on their family website,

05:31"'We first heard of the cancellation when both a friend and a cousin texted us

05:35after seeing TLC's statement online. We do not know how long the cancellation had been planned.'"

05:41The phrasing seems to suggest that communications between the Dillards and the larger family

05:46are so strained that the life-changing news was never shared behind closed doors.

05:51Fans might wonder if the Duggars and Dillards are even talking at all.

05:55Jana Duggar, the oldest daughter of Jim, Bob, and Michelle, turned 31 in 2021. Within the family's

06:01fundamentalist Christian community, she's inching increasingly closer to being considered a spinster,

06:06but she doesn't seem too bothered by her relationship status.

06:10"'There have been different guys come along and ask, but, yeah, it's just not — they haven't been,

06:16you know, the right — I don't know, the right one.'"

06:18In fact, in many ways, she appears to be reveling in her singleness,

06:23especially because her age seems to grant her some privileges that are usually reserved for

06:28married Duggar women, like wearing pants and going places without a chaperone in tow.

06:33Several of her Instagram photos show the brunette beauty wearing pants out and about in public,

06:38everywhere from football games to Las Vegas craft markets. This seemingly innocent apparel choice lies

06:44in sharp contrast to her parents' rule that women must wear skirts and dresses. It's a belief that

06:49stems from their interpretation of a Bible verse in Deuteronomy, which says,

06:54"'A woman shall not wear a man's garment.'"

06:56The pants are a huge contrast to the nearly three decades Jana spent wearing those more

07:01feminine items of clothing. Additionally, Jana may not be bound by the same chaperone rules as the

07:07other Duggar kids. She traveled to Chip and Joanna Gaines' Magnolia destination with her friend,

07:13Laura DeMazy, and her brother, Jason Duggar. A commenter on Jason's Instagram post said it was,

07:19quote,

07:19"...kind of sad that Jana wasn't allowed to go out and about without a chaperone."

07:23Jason set the record straight about his older sister by replying, in quotes,

07:27"'She can.'"

07:28In their same statement about counting on ending, Jill and Derek Dillard wrote,

07:32"'During our years on the show, we had many great experiences with the network,

07:36and several of the crew members have even become like family to us. However,

07:40we also faced many pressures and some unexpected challenges which forced us to step away from the

07:46show in an effort to gain more control over our own lives and to do what was best for our family."

07:51Surprisingly, the Dillards aren't the only ones who seem happy to have stepped away from the series

07:56and the fame that comes with it. On a 2021 episode of the Dinner Party with Jeremy Fall podcast,

08:02Ginger Volo chatted more openly about the various ways the show negatively impacted her mental health.

08:08She said on the podcast that her time on TV often led to her worrying about other people's opinions

08:14of her, remarking that she wrestles often with the complications of fame. Ginger also discussed

08:19the difficulty of forming friendships in adulthood outside of her family. She emotionally explained,

08:25"'It's hard sometimes when people don't understand your life. It's something that I think is

08:29definitely overlooked when people think about fame.'" Though the star shared that she's grateful,

08:34it sounds like spending your entire childhood and adolescence in front of the camera isn't as

08:39perfect as we may have all imagined it to be. There are a number of things many of us do regularly,

08:45like watch movies, dance, or listen to secular music, that are strict no-nos for the Duggar family.

08:51But other hobbies, like traveling the world, are perfectly acceptable. Travel lovers at heart,

08:56the Duggars have chronicled many of their vacations on their TLC shows. They've gone

09:00everywhere from Japan and Jerusalem to more easily accessible locations, including Washington D.C.

09:06and New York City. And just because the cameras have stopped rolling, that doesn't mean the Duggars

09:11have stopped embarking on these adventures. In fact, they took an RV trip out west and documented the

09:17entire thing on the family Instagram account. The Dillards have been on the move as well, taking a road

09:22trip from their native Arkansas to Oregon, following the Oregon Trail for parts of their journey. They,

09:27of course, took fans along for the ride on their YouTube channel, posting a series of short videos

09:32sharing the highlights. According to The Sun, the Duggars were making about $850,000 a year from

09:39counting on. So when the series ended and the paychecks stopped coming, they might have felt a

09:44financial blow. How have they been making money since, you may ask? It turns out there are a number of ways.

09:50InTouch Weekly reported that Jim Bob's commercial rental business brings in a good amount of money

09:55for the core family. Many of his sons work for him, but John David works as a pilot,

10:00Joseph as a real estate agent, and son-in-law Ben Seewald as a handyman.

10:04Joanna and her husband Austin bring money in flipping houses.

10:08Ginger and Jeremy host a podcast called The Hope We Hold, and Jeremy also works as a pastor.

10:14Many of the women of the family also frequently post sponsored content on Instagram, which,

10:19given their existing fame, must come at a pretty decent fee. However, it seems that many members

10:24of the family relied on those counting on checks as their primary source of income,

10:29so we may see a lot more family members trying out more traditional careers in the near future.

10:35While TLC might be done with the Duggar family, the Washington Post pointed out that the world

10:40might not be. The Duggars certainly have a large fan base. Even towards the end, the show was

10:45topping one million viewers for an episode, and many of the family's individual members maintain

10:50large social media presences. This popularity indicates that regardless of scandals and drama,

10:56the family remains commercially viable. So it's possible that we may find them in some form back

11:02on our screens in the future, even if it's only on our computer screens while more of the siblings

11:07put out content on YouTube. Tom Noonan, a professor and former network executive, told The Post,

11:13Typically, these things, like decisions about who to put on TV, come down to the executive suites

11:18at networks, and down to advertising and sales departments. Maybe that means that as long as

11:23there's money to be made off of the family, there's always a chance they could make a comeback somehow.

11:28If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape,

11:33Abuse and Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE-4673.

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