Jill Duggar's family built a wholesome reality TV empire. Now her book talks about its damage
Jill Duggar never thought of herself as the rebellious type — quite the opposite.
As the former star of "19 Kids and Counting" writes in her memoir, "Counting the Cost," "I was hands down the best approval hunter in the whole Duggar family." As a child raised in a strict Christian Fundamentalist household, she followed rules that forbid "sinful" pursuits like dancing and promoted obedience to paternal authority above all else. Later, when her family's hit TLC reality show thrust her into the limelight as a teenager, Duggar didn't question the constant presence of the camera or where all the money from the network was going.
But Duggar became the most visible defector in her famous family with the publication of her book last month. In it, she paints a grim picture of life inside the reality TV bubble, claiming she was tricked by her father, Jim Bob Duggar, into signing a five-year contract that required her to have intimate moments — including the birth of her first child — filmed for public consumption. Even as her father became wealthy enough to amass a fleet of private airplanes and a vast real estate portfolio, she received no money for starring in "19 Kids and Counting" or the spinoff "" until she waged a painful, protracted legal
