The Duggar family has learned to do a little acting after nine years of filming their reality TV series. According to Josiah Duggar, not everything that viewers see on Counting On is real.
Josiah Duggar, 20, shared a big behind-the-scenes secret during a recent interview about his family’s experiences filming Counting On . As OK! Magazine reports, the fourth-oldest Duggar son confessed that he and his siblings are occasionally asked to re-shoot scenes for their TLC series.
“The show has changed the way we live…We walk through a door, and [then] we have to walk through it again [because] we didn’t do it [right] the first time,” Josiah told TLCme host Danni Starr.
Members of the Duggar family have been accused of doing a lot more than re-shooting their entrances. As previously reported by the Inquisitr , the Duggar family and the Counting On production team were criticized for faking the sale of a car in 2016. In the Counting On episode “Jinger Flips,” Jinger Duggar and a few of her male siblings purchased a car at an auction, cleaned it up, and tried to turn a profit on it by reselling it. A man named Eric was filmed agreeing to buy the vehicle, but Jinger later told the Counting On cameras that the deal fell through. After the episode aired, Eric took to Facebook to allege that the whole car sale scene was staged. He wrote that he has a friend who works on the Counting On crew and was asked if he would play the part of a “guy who wants to buy car” on the show. He agreed to act like he was interested in Jinger’s flipped car, but someone associated with the setup seemingly decided that they didn’t want to lie about the staged car sale being a success.
Some Counting On fans think that Jeremy Vuolo’s “surprise” proposal to Jinger Duggar was also staged or reenacted. When the Duggar Family Blog posted photos of Jeremy popping the question, commenters were quick to point out the J- and V-shaped markings made out of tape that were visible in some of the images. They speculated that the marks were put there so Jinger and Jeremy would know where to stand during the proposal scene.
“Anyone else notice the J and V tape on the floor so they ‘hit the mark’ for filming? Not sure I like a proposal that scripted,” one viewer commented.
Jinger Duggar’s travel drama threatens Jeremy Vuolo’s proposal on #CountingOn : https://t.co/ZLKYhf5pqF pic.twitter.com/8s8akDqoq5
— Us Weekly (@usweekly) October 5, 2016
Radar Online has also reported that the Duggar family faked a charity donation while filming their former TLC series, 19 Kids and Counting . An eyewitness said that no needy families attended a food drive that the Duggars were taking part in, so the 19 Kids and Counting production crew approached a family shopping for clothing at the thrift store where the charity event was being held. The family agreed to be filmed taking a box of junk food from the Duggars, and they were allegedly coached to act like they were grateful for the Duggars’ donation. Jim Bob even pretended to empathize with their feigned need for food by telling them that he once ate decorative rice as a boy because his family was so destitute. The Duggars were also filmed placing a box of junk food in the faux-needy family’s car, but the 19 Kids and Counting stars reportedly took the food back after the cameras stopped rolling.
To be fair, the Duggars aren’t the only successful reality TV stars who re-shoot scenes. Another famous family that has been on TV almost as long as they have, the Kardashians , have reportedly reenacted big life events for the benefit of their viewers. According to Life & Style , a Keeping Up With the Kardashians executive producer confessed that Kim Kardashian and her former husband, Kris Humphries, re-shot their big proposal scene because Kim didn’t like the way she reacted in the original take. The producer also said that Kim Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner, faked a conversation about Kim’s marital woes after she had already filed for divorce from Kris Humphries.
Are you surprised that a member of the Duggar family has admitted that Counting On isn’t 100 percent real? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
[Featured Image by FOX News Channel/Getty Images]