The Duggar family’s secrets are coming to light in a new documentary series aptly named Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. The four-part series aims to investigate the darker side of the reality TV stars, well, actual reality. Duggar Family Secrets will include intimate and potentially explosive interviews with multiple members of the once-beloved TLC clan, including Jill Duggar and her husband, who stepped away from the family’s reality series spinoff, Counting On, as recently as 2017.
While the docuseries’ main draw is obviously the Duggars, the show will also explore the troubling religious organization the Duggar family famously belongs to: The Institute in Basic Life Principles.
“The IBLP teachings aren’t Christianity,” one woman alleges in the trailer. “They’re something entirely different.”
Interested in watching Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets? Here’s what you need to know about the new Duggar family documentary.
When does the Duggar family documentary come out?
The Duggar Family Secrets release date is June 2. The docuseries on the Duggar family will stream exclusively on Prime Video.
Where to watch the Duggar documentary, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets
(Photo: Amazon)
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Who are the Duggars?
The Duggars, parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 19 children, are an evangelical family who found mainstream fame through their TLC reality series, 19 Kids and Counting (originally titled 17 Kids and Counting, but they kept counting).
The show portrayed the Duggars, who followed the teachings of radical Christian group the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), as the perfect, albeit dramatically large, family.
The upcoming docuseries, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, promises to expose the truth underneath the long-running reality series’ facade
What is the Duggar family controversy?
While the evangelical family encountered many critics throughout the years of their reality series, the Duggar family’s biggest controversy centers on Josh Duggar, the eldest son of the family. In 2015, reports surfaced revealing Josh Duggar had admitted to law enforcement that he had molested five girls as a teenager. Four of the victims were his sisters.
Following this revelation, TLC pulled 19 Kids and Counting from the air, but went on to give the Duggar family a new spinoff show, Counting On. Then, in 2022, Josh Duggar was found guilty of knowingly receiving and possessing child pornography. Following the recent conviction, Counting On was canceled as well.
Are the Duggars involved in the new documentary
Several of the Duggars are involved in the new docuseries, including Amy (Duggar) King and Jill Duggar Dillard and her husband, Derick Dillard. It will be Jill and Derick’s first time fully speaking out against the Duggar family.
“There’s a story that’s going to be told,” Jill says in the series trailer. “And I would rather be the one telling it.”
Jill came forward in 2015 as one of the four sisters who Josh molested.
What is Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets about?
While the Duggar documentary series is partially an investigation into the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a “controversial fundamentalist organization and homeschooling empire” with which the Duggar family is heavily associated, the series title indicates the show will focus mainly on the Duggars themselves.
Duggar Family Secrets trailer:
Where to watch 19 Kids and Counting
The Duggar family’s original reality series currently isn’t streaming anywhere, but you can watch some episodes broken up into multiple parts for free on YouTube.