Jessa Duggar And Jill Duggar Spin-Off Nixed By Jim Bob Because He Wants To Be Back On TV

Jessa Duggar and Jill Duggar won’t get to return to TV because it seems as though Jim Bob Duggar is a bit of a spotlight hog.

After Josh Duggar had admitted to molesting four of his sisters when they were young girls, TLC made the decision to stop broadcasting 19 Kids and Counting and even pulled reruns of the reality show from its schedule. The future of the series remained in limbo for two months before the network finally decided to cancel it for good. In the interim, there were rumors that TLC execs were mulling over the idea of a spin-off that would focus on Jessa Duggar, Jill Duggar, and their husbands, Ben Seewald and Derick Dillard. However, Jim Bob put his foot down and said “No” to the spin-off show.

A source recently talked to PEOPLE about the “intense” conversations that TLC and the Duggars had about the family’s future on the network. The source revealed that Jessa and Jill won’t get to cash any more TLC paychecks because Jim Bob doesn’t like the idea of a show centered on his daughters — if he can’t be on TV, then no Duggars will.

“He absolutely wanted to be back on TV and was never thrilled about the show suddenly shifting focus.”

Jessa Duggar and Jill Duggar are grown women capable of making their own decisions, so TLC could have ignored Jim Bob’s concerns and offered the girls their own show anyway. However, as the Inquisitr recently reported, the Duggars follow a fringe strain of Christianity that teaches young women that men — namely fathers and husbands — are authority figures who must be obeyed. Even though they’re married now, Jessa and Jill likely felt a strong obligation to respect their father’s wishes.

Jim Bob also saw 19 Kids and Counting as a platform to share his family’s religious beliefs with the world. Perhaps he feared that his message would get distorted if it was being delivered by his daughters and their husbands instead of straight from his own mouth. Jessa and Jill are supposed to submit to their husbands’ authority now, so they’d likely be parroting whatever Ben Seewald and Derick Dillard say instead of spouting their father’s views.

It’s obvious that Jim Bob Duggar is upset with TLC’s decision to cancel his family’s TLC series, but the network isn’t giving up on the possibility of the patriarch caving in and allowing the show go on without him. According to CNN Money, a spokesman for TLC’s parent company, Discovery Communications, recently revealed that “the channel is not ruling out a spin-off show featuring some of the Duggar children in the future.”

Now would be a bad time to start a spin-off series anyway — Jill is currently on a long-term mission trip with her husband and baby. Perhaps, TLC will try approaching the Duggar daughters again after they return. Fans of the Duggar family can take comfort in knowing that Jim Bob is allowing Jessa and Jill to participate in a one-hour special about child molestation that TLC will air later this summer, so the Duggars haven’t completely severed their relationship with the network.

Do you think it was wrong for Jim Bob to deny Jessa Duggar and Jill Duggar the opportunity to star in their own spin-off series?

[Image credit: Jill Duggar/Instagram]