Jill Duggar Claims She and Husband Derick Dillard Were Not Paid For TLC Reality Series Featuring Family

Former Counting On star Jill (Duggar) Dillard opened up about her experience on the show and now says she and husband Derick Dillard were not paid originally. She told PEOPLE it took years for them to get the money they were owed after they hired a lawyer. Dillard, 29, and Derick left the series in 2017, and since then Derick has frequently spoken out against Dillard’s father, Jim Bob Duggar, accusing him of keeping the money they were owed.

Dillard became a reality TV star when Duggar and Michelle Duggar agreed to star in 19 Kids and Counting for TLC in 2008. The show was canceled in 2015, but TLC created Jill and Jessa: Counting On to keep the Duggar family on television. The new show allegedly came with a $25,000 to $45,000 paycheck, but Dillard told PEOPLE she did not see any of that money until she left the series. “That’s when we got an attorney involved and finally recovered some of the money,” Dillard told PEOPLE, adding, “It was a process.” TLC declined to comment.

Derick has discussed the alleged compensation problem in the past. In a video on their family YouTube page, he said that when they did finally see some of the money, it was “little more than minimum wage… but we were able to recover at least something.” In October 2019, Derick appeared to accuse Duggar of keeping money the TLC shows earned. One fan asked Derick why Duggar got to keep “all the money” from the show. Rather than deny this was the case, Derick replied, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him that.”

In her new interview, Dillard said it has been “difficult” since she and her husband began distancing themselves from the Duggar family. She “never expected this to happen or for it to get to this point,” she said, adding that she hopes to reconcile. “I love my family and they love me. I really just have to follow God’s lead and take it one day at a time,” she said.

One reason the Dillards distanced themselves from the Duggars was to have tighter control of their own lives. “Our control to choose what jobs we were allowed to accept and even where we were allowed to live was taken away from us,” Dillard said. Derick told PEOPLE they were constantly told what they could not do during the first years of their marriage.

“Every family has differences of opinion and perspective at times, but families work things out,” Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar told PEOPLE in response to Dillard’s interview. “We all love Jill, Derick, and their boys [Israel, 5, and Samuel, 3] very much. It is our prayer that our relationship is healed and fully restored quickly!”