Jillian Michaels continues to speak her piece following the release of Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser– the Netflix docuseries that highlights some of the show’s most-controversial moments.
While the former Biggest Loser trainer opted not to participate in the docuseries, she’s taken to social media and various outlets following its release to deny some of the allegations made against her in the project, including the comments made by fellow trainer Bob Harper regarding the status of their friendship.
As The Ashley told you, Bob claimed in the docuseries that Jillian failed to reach out to him after he suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 2017 and he also denied that he and Jillian were as close in real life as they appeared to be on the show.
Meanwhile, Jillian has been painting a much-different picture of her and Bob’s friendship, as well as the reasons they no longer have one.
In a telephone interview with TMZ this week, Jillian was asked to reveal what caused the bad blood between her and Bob; instead of providing a clear response, Jillian claimed that she didn’t know where things had gone wrong between the two, insisting only that “it’s been like this always.”
“That’s all I can tell you, is it’s always been like this,” she said, before going on to accuse Bob of speaking negatively about her on multiple occasions.
“ … if you look historically at, let’s say a [Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen] appearance with [Bob] on it, he’ll be saying negative things about me,” she said. “If you look at the show’s reboot, he’ll be saying negative things about me. If you look at this documentary, he’ll be saying negative things about me.”
Jillian went on to claim that one of the very last times she attempted to contact Bob was via text in 2014– nearly three years before Bob’s heart attack– and she never received a response from him. (Jillian posted a screenshot of this alleged one-sided exchange to Instagram earlier this week.)
“ … I tried to reach him numerous times about the situation with Rachel Frederickson, [because] I was really upset about that … ,” she said, referring to the Season 15 winner, who is arguably the show’s most-controversial champ due to the extreme amount of weight she lost by the finale.
According to Jillian, throughout the years that she and Bob worked together on the ‘Biggest Loser,’ she would often reach out to him off-camera to discuss how to handle certain things (like the public’s reaction to the Rachel situation, for example), but she maintains that Bob never responded to her messages. Still, Jillian seemed to place most of the blame on where things stand with Bob today on his alleged tendency to speak negatively about her in public.
“There’s so many details and it was a very long and complex relationship,” she said. “I can’t even really honestly tell you why [there’s bad blood]. All I can do is show you, like, look at the documentary, and that’s what I lived with, with Bob, the entire time.”
Former ‘Biggest Loser’ trainer Dolvett Quince, who trained the show’s contestants from Season 12 to Season 17, also weighed in on the dynamic between Jillian and Bob, telling Us Weekly that, while cameras were rolling, “those two sort of stayed in their neutral corners, as boxers tend to do.”
“I think the competitive nature of the show wasn’t just left on the contestants,” Dolvett– who did not appear in ‘Fit for TV’– added. “There’s a competitive nature amongst the trainers.”
As fans of ‘Biggest Loser’ may remember, Dolvett trained contestants alongside Jillian and Bob in Seasons 14 and 15. During their time on the show together, Dolvett said the competitiveness between his fellow trainers could be felt by everyone, including himself.
“That competition really stems from – in my mind – I’m going to show I can do a better job than she’s going to show or he’s going to show,” Dolvett said. “And I felt you could definitely see that tension come and go between those two.”
When asked about the way in which Jillian and Bob interacted with their contestants, Dolvett admitted that, at the time, he didn’t always respect how the two conducted themselves.
“I would have done things differently,” he told the outlet, noting that he’s always preferred to “assess personalities” and train accordingly, whereas some trainers– presumably Jillian and Bob– like to train people the way they train themselves.
As The Ashley told you earlier this week, Jillian revealed that she’s looking at her legal options and consulting with an attorney to see if she has enough to file a lawsuit against those involved in the ‘Fit for TV’ docuseries, which she claims is “filled with so many lies.”
“These things are obviously very costly. This is wasted hours … that I really honestly don’t have, it costs tons of money that I really don’t want to spend, but at this point, it’s so egregious and it’s so damaging that I don’t think I have a choice,” she said.
‘Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser’ is streaming now on Netflix.
(Photos: NBC; Instagram; Netflix)
One Response
They are both messy. Neither of them have likeable qualities, but I did read one comment that stuck with me is that Jillian had the sense not to even try to to appear on the documentary to defend her actions. Bob seems like he was making excuses and seemed lighthearted about the the whole thing like an “aw shucks” act.