Olivia Plath is opening up about how the new Duggar family docuseries, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, was “triggering” for her to watch due to her own religious upbringing. The Welcome to Plathville star, 25, took to her Instagram Story Saturday to share how the Prime Video docuseries centered around the Duggar family and their religion, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, ended up feeling very familiar to her.
“That was my life up until a few years ago,” Plath said. “A little triggering to watch, but also there is solidarity in having other people speak up and say, ‘Yep, you’re not crazy, happened to me too. I know about this.’ That is healing in a way.” Plath revealed that she’s gotten an “overwhelming response” from people asking her to discuss her own religious upbringing, which prompted her and sister Lydia to discuss more in-depth their experiences as “ex-[fundamentalist] and ex-cult kids” on Instagram Live.
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“I will say, the realm in which my public life exists, there’s a lot of things I can’t say,” the TLC personality shared with people. “There’s a lot of things I want to say about religion, about my past, about the world that I went right back into, and I hadn’t known to say them in the public space that exists for me, so I’m gonna get on [Instagram] instead.” She added, “I’m jumping on to say my experience, to be honest, was decently negative. There’s a lot of things that I laugh about now, because what else are you supposed to do?” adding that she is “not really religious anymore.”
Welcome to Plathville, which premiered on TLC in 2019, began following the ultra-conservative Plath family living in Georgia – Olivia’s husband Ethan, his parents Barry and Kim Plath, and his eight siblings. The show has since gone on to follow several of the older children, including Olivia and Ethan, as they distance themselves from their parents and childhood teachings while striking out on their own. Ethan and Olivia now live in Minneapolis with his 19-year-old sister, Moriah Plath, and last year, Kim and Barry announced that they had split after 24 years of marriage.
