Olivia Plath is accusing TLC of leaning into family drama and alleged abuse going on behind-the-scenes of Welcome to Plathville, despite years of the network allegedly “covering it up” for the Duggar family of 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On.
During a recent episode of the Positively Uncensored podcast, Olivia– who is the ex-wife of Ethan Plath– recalled that before she and Ethan agreed to participate in his family’s show, executives from TLC traveled to Georgia to convince the (now former) couple to film, during which, the network allegedly mentioned the Duggar family by name.
“ … it was like, ‘Look at this happy family, there’s now an opening for this kind of show,’ because the Duggars were kind of phasing out,” Olivia recalled. “I remember explicitly that me and [Ethan] were like, ‘We are not a happy family, what are you talking about? Like, behind the scenes, there’s so much manipulation. We’re not even allowed to see his siblings, how are you supposed to film as a family if you can’t even see each other?’
“And so we were really adamantly against [doing the show] because it was presented to us at that point as that this is a big happy family … ,” she continued, noting that Ethan’s mom, Kim Plath, had already signed on for the show. (In July, Olivia went into more detail about this situation, stating that TLC actually let Kim negotiate Olivia’s contract, despite Olivia being an adult at the time and not Kim’s child.)
Olivia said when ‘Welcome to Plathville’ premiered in 2019, she was still in a certain mindset due to her growing up “in a very white bubble, a very Christian bubble, a very conservative bubble.” While she said the network believed the Plaths would be “another Duggar” family, Olivia claims TLC quickly realized that wasn’t the case, so the network responded by leaning into the family’s drama.
She also claimed that certain storylines between kids and parents that would have been covered up for the Duggar family in order “protect this Fundamentalist image” were highlighted on ‘Welcome to Plathville.’
“ … when everything happened with [Josh Duggar], when all that came out and TLC’s reputation was suffering for knowing and covering that up, I think that’s why with ‘[Welcome to] Plathville,’ they fully leaned into all of that and kind of highlighted that drama instead of covering it up,” she said.
As fans will remember, the Duggar family’s “19 Kids and Counting” was cancelled by the network in 2015 following the news that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s eldest son Josh had molested five girls– including four of his sisters– when they were minors. The family’s spin-off show, ‘Counting On,’ premiered later that year, focusing on the adult offspring of Jim Bob and Michelle (but not Josh). That show was cancelled in 2021 after Josh– who did not appear on the show– was arrested for receiving and possessing child sex abuse materials (CSAM). The 37-year-old father of seven was convicted in 2021 of receiving CSAM and is currently incarcerated in federal prison.
While Olivia claims that TLC opted to highlight the drama within the Plath family, she insists the network also chose to cover up “the beliefs under everything”– something with which she didn’t initially see a problem.
“I didn’t see a problem with not bringing up politics,” she said. “And as time went on throughout the years the show was airing, I was starting to deconstruct my personal life and coming to very different conclusions on politics and religion and that is the point when I started hitting friction with the network, because I realized that I was censored.”
Olivia alleges that the real reason behind her and Ethan’s divorce– which both she and Ethan announced in October 2023 following months of speculation from fans– was another topic that the show “tiptoed” around.
“ … we couldn’t say on camera, ‘It’s because [Ethan] was red-pilled and is a Christian nationalist and believes in all these things and I don’t [believe in these things]. I believe in human rights and my own autonomy as a woman,’” she said. “Like, we couldn’t say these things and it all had to be packaged differently.” (Olivia has since come out and alleged that TLC ignored abuse she and others in the family endured behind the scenes of the show.)
Olivia said in hindsight, she realizes that the network “really covers up a lot and repackages it as entertainment,” though she understands why some people would scroll past the show and choose not to watch, noting that the reality series lacks diversity and is “pretty bland.”
“ … in the tagline marketing descriptor for the show, is it not a family of blonde hair, blue eyed [people]?” Olivia said. “It’s literally marketed as an Aryan show and there’s not a lot of color on it. I’m not gonna lie, between thought processes, beliefs, people, there’s not a lot of color on there. It’s all pretty bland.”
Olivia’s comments about TLC are just the latest critiques she’s shared in recent months about her former in-laws and their reality series. As The Ashley previously told you, Olivia spoke out over the summer about how allegedly hateful and crooked the Plaths are behind-the-scenes of their TLC show, even slamming her ex-husband for exhibiting some extremely disturbing behavior during their marriage.
Just last week, Olivia called out her former mother-in-law’s problematic parenting, alleging on the Pink Shade podcast that Kim favors “whatever child will feed into her ego.”
Watch a clip from Olivia’s recent podcast interview below.
@positivelyuncensored Don’t waste your breath defending Christian nationalism in my comments, I’ll block you 🙂 for everyone else, full episode on all platforms @Olivia Marie Plath #welcometoplathville #tlc #plathvilletiktok #19kidsandcounting
RELATED STORY: Olivia Plath Claims Former Mother-in-law Kim Favors Her Children Based on Who Will “Feed into Her Ego”
(Photos: Instagram; TLC; TikTok)
6 Responses
She’s exhausting. For two years she claimed that all she wanted was to be divorced and done with that family, but now that she is, she takes ANY opportunity to talk about them.
TLC has covered up some things that just had me stop watching almost all of their programs. I found it difficult to keep supporting this network after the Duggar stuff and when Jakob Roloff brought his SA to light.
Really sick of her. “Marketed as an Aryan show”?? Not a lot of color in it? It’s a white family. Should they hold auditions and replace some of the family members with some black folks? She’s just so stupid, the race stuff is so tiring.
First off, there isn’t much basis for such a thing as “Christian Nationalist” The Bible and the US Gov are not in alignment and true Christianity (followers of Christ) didn’t start in the Western world. Those two words together make me sick. Plus, I don’t see Ethan exhibiting many qualities of a Christ follower. It doesn’t line up.
Glad to see her finally not play dumb and admit she knew a lot if this stuff before getting on board