Counting On attracted fans of all kinds, including prisoners, according to Jinger (Duggar) Vuolo. Days after the long-running TLC series was canceled, Jinger, 27, revealed that her sisters received love letters and proposals from prisoners during the show’s run. TLC canceled Counting On earlier this week in the wake of Josh Duggar’s arrest on federal child pornography charges in April.
“Guys would write from prison for my sisters. It was crazy,” Jinger said in the new episode of the Dinner Party with Jeremy Fall podcast, reports Entertainment Tonight. “We constantly had letters coming in the mail and it was like, ‘Oh, who is it for this time? Oh, it’s for Jana, oh, it’s for Jessa’… It was mind-blowing just to think that somebody thought they would walk right into your life and marry you, like, they were already basically proposing in their letters.”
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However, Jinger said she understood there was something a little uncomfortable with this. “And they thought it was legit but looking at it, you know, I can understand how somebody would think, ‘Oh, I know you so well because I watched you from a child grow up,’ so they think that there’s a relationship there when there’s not,” she said. “It’s like, a one-sided thing.”
There were also “fanboys” who visited their church, hoping to court her and her sisters, Jinger said. This felt “so bizarre” to her because they would know these men were not regulars at their church. She knew these men were only going to the church in an attempt to associate themselves with a famous television family. “I remember that being something that, as a young person, that’s just like, ‘Nope, nope, nope, that’s not gonna work for me,’” she told Jeremy Fall. “And I think going back to that whole trust thing, it’s something that you want to make sure that this person has good intentions. It’s not just like, ‘Oh, this guy wants to be on TV, and here’s his big break. I’m gonna go marry one of the Duggar daughters and that’s my in.’ That’s the last thing you wanted.”
Today, Jinger is happily married to former soccer player Jeremy Vuolo, and the couple shares two children. They were introduced by Ben Seewald, the husband of her sister, Jessa (Duggar) Seewald. One of the things Jinger found attractive about Vuolo was that he didn’t really know about the family’s fame. She could tell he was no fanboy and was only interested in Jinger as a person, not as a TV star, she told Fall.
TLC canceled Counting On after 11 seasons on Tuesday “to give the Duggar family the opportunity to address their situation privately,” the network said. This is the second Duggar series canceled after a controversy involving Josh, as 19 Kids and Counting was canceled in 2015 after it was discovered that he molested young girls as a teenager. In April, Josh was arrested on federal charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. His trial was first scheduled for July, but it has since been delayed to November.
“We are grateful for TLC giving us the opportunity to be on their network over the years and their kindness towards the Vuolo family. It’s been a remarkable journey that has opened doors to traveling and experiencing the world in a way that we wouldn’t have imagined possible,” Jinger and Vuolo wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “We wholeheartedly agree with TLC’s decision not to renew Counting On and are excited for the next chapter in our lives. We’d like to thank our fans, friends, and the amazing film crew who have shown us love and support. We look forward to continuing our creative journey in Los Angeles and seeing what the future holds.”
