26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Jinger Duggar Vuolo Spills on Behind-the-Scenes Life During the Duggar Family's Reality TV Years
Jinger Duggar Vuolo is sharing what life was truly like behind the scenes during the early years of her family's lengthy reality TV ride. During the latest episode of her and her husband Jeremy Vuolo's podcast, The Jinger & Jeremy Podcast, the pair went back in time to 2004 — rewatching the debut of 14 Children and Pregnant Again!
!, the documentary special that catapulted the Duggars into 17 years of TV stardom.
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Jinger shared the build-up to the cameras during a recount. She explained that preparation was rigorous. "We cleaned like crazy," she said. "Because like my mom always kept our house pretty clean — we had our chores. Our house was not terribly messy all the time. I mean, it would get messy, but then we'd always clean it up." The detail was precise, particularly regarding the home's appearance.
"I just recall we cleaned the baseboards because we had white baseboards at home.
And I recall we had to scrub them very well, and our white walls, because they would get dirty," she remembered.
"We would do that, but before [cameras] came." To prepare for the cameras, aside from cleaning up for the cameras, Jinger spilled the beans on how her parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, motivated their big brood to work in conjunction with filming practices by making tasks enjoyable. One of their innovative methods was for the family's 15-passenger van.
"My dad figured out some of the kids were not wanting to buckle," said Jinger.
"Whomever the first guy was to say 'click' or whatever — I think that is the way it is — you would receive a penny.
And then that would accumulate over time, because every time you jumped into the van, it was sort of a game."
The reward system did not end there. Other chores such as scrubbing the van also had small monetary incentives. "We would get however much money they wanted to pay us to clean all the trash out of the van," she said. Jinger's musings provide a glimpse behind the scenes of the highly organized — and frequently slyly incentivized — world that shaped the Duggar family's public persona during their time in the spotlight. As she and Jeremy keep going back in time on their podcast, fans are learning more about the reality of life as a Duggar, well beyond what appeared on television.
