Jinger Duggar Reveals She Felt Uneasy About Being on TV: ‘I Felt Strangely On Display’
Jinger Duggar has starred on the TLC reality show Counting On since it premiered back in 2008. Duggar, who is Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar’s sixth child, was in the midst of her teen years when cameras infiltrated her daily life.
Though Duggar is used to it now, there was a time when she felt uneasy about all the fame and about being on “display” at such a young age.
The Duggar family’s life has been documented on TV since 2008
Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar gained notoriety in the early 2000s for having so many kids. Soon, there were specials on television involving the family. And once TLC recognized that people wanted to follow the Duggars, they approached them about doing a reality show.
For years, cameras have followed the Duggar family. They’ve captured plenty of weddings, new babies, even some deaths. They also captured the struggles that came along with Josh Duggar’s 2015 sexual abuse scandal. And beyond that, they helped fans realize tensions between family members, such as Jill Duggar and her parents. Now, more than a decade later, the family is still showing off their lives — not only on TV but also on social media.
Jinger Duggar felt like she was on ‘display’ when she first started filming
Jinger Duggar was about 15 when Counting On premiered 13 years ago. Since then, we’ve watched her grow up, get married, and start a family of her own. But when the cameras began rolling, Duggar’s life changed quickly — and she wasn’t entirely ready for it.
In Duggar’s new book, she reveals that life “couldn’t have prepared her” for the “flood gates” that opened once her family became more well known.
“Suddenly, it seemed like everybody in the world knew my name,” Duggar wrote. “Whether I was licking an ice cream cone at Braum’s or loading a cart with cans at Aldi, I heard someone whisper, ‘That’s her! That’s Jinger!’ I felt strangely on display, like people knew something about me that I didn’t.”
Duggar said that her brothers and sisters were also confused by the fame, but her mother told her to always be kind to the fans they’d meet. Duggar also added that she found it funny that fans called her a rebel, since she “wanted nothing more than to please my own parents.”
Jinger Duggar and her husband didn’t think they’d last on ‘Counting On’
When Duggar married her husband, Jeremy Vuolo, the two moved down to Laredo, Texas, where Vuolo was working as a pastor.
Vuolo thought that he and Duggar would “move on with” their lives once they were married and starting a family of their own. However, after thinking about the positive impact the show has had regarding their religion, Duggar and Vuolo ultimately decided it made more sense for them to continue with the show. Fast forward nearly five years, and Duggar and Vuolo are still an integral part of Counting On.
