‘Counting On’ Alum Derick Dillard Uses Old Tweet to Slam TLC Over Promo ‘Forced’ on Wife Jill Duggar

Former Counting On star Derick Dillard made a confusing allegation in a tweet on Thursday, when he responded to TLC tweet from almost four years ago. Dillard claimed TLC tried to “force” wife Jill (Duggar) Dillard into a promotional photo for the show, but since they refused, the network included her other sisters. Dillard has made it clear he is no fan of the network since his family left the show in 2017.

“Notice how we were not a part of the promotional for this,” Dillard wrote Thursday in his first tweet since Jan. 2. “They tried to force Jill to be in the promotional pic for this show, but we refused. So they just inserted other sisters from the home.”

Dillard’s tweet was in response to tweets dating back to February 2016. The first is a tweet from the now-defunct page for Jill & Jessa: Counting On, the original title for Counting On. The link in the tweet is now dead, and just takes visitors to the main TLC page.

In the tweet Dillard directly responded to, a Twitter user called on sponsors to ditch TLC for continuing to work with the Duggar family, even after Josh Duggar’s 2015 child molestation scandal.

It’s not clear why Dillard suddenly responded to these tweets or what promotional picture he is referring to. At the time the February 2016 tweets were published, Jill was still part of the show.

In 2017, Dillard was fired for his transphobic tweets about Jazz Jennings, the star of TLC’s I Am Jazz series, which showcased Jennings’ life as a transgender teen. Dillard later apologized, and has repeatedly insisted he was not fired by TLC. He claimed it was his decision to leave the show. In September 2019, Dillard claimed he and Jill left the show because it interrupted his missionary work.

More recently, Dillard has made it clear he does not plan on ever appearing on Counting On again, especially after his recent criticisms of Jill’s father, Jim Bob Duggar.

“No chance of that unless something changes,” Dillard tweeted last month. “The conditions we were filming under took us to the brink of sanity and could have easily destroyed our lives if we had continued that trajectory. We are now trying to pick up the pieces.”

In an Instagram Q&A, Dillard claimed Jim Bob is the one who receives the TLC paychecks and then doles them out to the family members.

“All of the shows have been under [Jim Bob’s] contract,” Dillard claimed. “He is the only one with a contract. The show title has nothing to do with whose show it is or who owns/controls the contract.”

Dillard and Jill “were under the impression that the family didn’t make any money from the show,” he continued. “Rather, it was presented to us as something that was done as a ministry that TLC periodically subsidized in the form of reimbursements for things like gas, restaurants, travel, etc. But not any actual pay on top of that.”

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