Jill Duggar Dillard and her husband, Derick Dillard, had a great Thanksgiving holiday. But, apparently, they didn’t celebrate the occasion with the rest of the Counting On family. Based on Jill’s Instagram post, the family had a lovely “Friendsgiving” with some of their closest friends.
Jill posted a photo of her family posing with her friend, Savannah Durham, and her family. Judging by her post, they certainly had a lovely holiday, as she wrote, “We had a wonderful Friendsgiving yesterday!”
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In one of the photos she posted, you can see that Jill and Derick’s sons, Samuel and Israel, were a little tuckered out from all of the Thanksgiving festivities. “Haha and the boys had so much fun playing that they were so tired and ready for bed by the time we took this pic,” Jill explained.
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Many fans took to the comments section of the IG post to ask why the couple didn’t spend Thanksgiving with the rest of the Duggar family. While Jill didn’t comment on the situation, Derick did seemingly address their absence from the Duggar Thanksgiving celebration.
Derick responded to a comment that appears to have been deleted and wrote, “It wasn’t optional, and we’ve never earned our living from it.” Although, it’s unclear what he was answering.
Some fans wondered whether Jill and Derick’s absence from the larger family gathering was due to the pair’s rumored difficult relationship with Jim Bob Duggar and TLC, the channel which Counting On airs. As you’ll likely recall, TLC reportedly fired Derick from Counting On back in 2017 after he made transphobic comments about fellow TLC star Jazz Jennings. (Derick has long claimed that he was not fired from the program and that he actually quit because it interrupted his missionary work.)
In August 2017, Derick made a series of controversial tweets about Jennings, who stars on I Am Jazz on TLC. “What an oxymoron… a ‘reality’ show which follows a non-reality,” Derick wrote, in response to a TLC tweet about I Am Jazz. “‘Transgender’ is a myth. Gender is not fluid; it’s ordained by God.”
He continued (and subsequently misgendered Jennings in the process), “I pity Jazz, [for] those who take advantage of him in order [to] promote their agenda, including the parents who allow these kinds of decisions [to] be made by a child. It’s sad that [people] would use a juvenile this way. Again, nothing against him, just unfortunate what’s on TV these days.”
TLC later released a statement about the situation in 2017.
“We want to let our viewers know that Derick Dillard has not participated in Counting On for months and the network has no plans to feature him in the future,” the statement read. “We want to reiterate that Derick’s personal statements do not reflect the views of the network. TLC is proud to share the story of Jazz Jennings and her family and will continue to do so.”
