Latest news with #CarlaTriplett
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Who Is Joelle Gwynn? What to Know About ‘The Biggest Loser' Season 7 Contestant
Joelle Gwynn made her reality TV debut in Season 7 of The Biggest Loser in 2009. The show had a 'couples' theme, and Gwynn competed alongside her friend Carla Triplett. The ladies were eliminated during Week 5, but their story will be revisited in the upcoming Netflix docuseries Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser. Gywnn is one of the former contestants who was interviewed for the three-part show. Ahead of the release, scroll down to learn more about the Season 7 contestant. How much weight did Joelle Gwynn lose on The Biggest Loser? She started the show at 309 lbs. and ended at 229 lbs., for a total of 80 lbs. lost. She also began with a BMI of 47 and completed the show with a BMI of 34.8. Gwynn has not given an update on her current weight. Are Joelle and Carla still friends? No, the women did not maintain a close relationship after filming ended. They also famously bickered on the show after Gwynn lost zero pounds during a weigh-in before their elimination. 'I've known Joelle for two years. I still consider her a friend and have reached out to her many times but I don't know how she feels,' Triplett told People in 2009. As Gwynn explained, 'Carla and I were actually more of acquaintances. She did suggest for marketing purposes that we put 'best friends,' but we are still interacting in the same way that we did before and we are still working on achieving our goals; we are just doing it separately. I didn't want to come on the show and do drama. There were some things that were said publicly that were hurtful, but sometimes relationships are rocky like that.' Why was Joelle Gwynn sued by The Biggest Loser doctor? In 2016, Gwynn made bombshell claims about her time on the show. She alleged that she was given a pill that made her 'jittery and hyper' while competing to lose weight. 'I went and told the sports medicine guy,' she alleged to the New York Post in an article that has since been taken down, per The Hollywood Reporter. 'The next day, Dr. [Robert] Huizenga gave us some lame explanation of why they got added to our regimen and that it was up to us to take them.' Dr. Huizenga and Gwynn's trainer on the show, Bob Harper, vehemently denied her claims. 'Nothing could be father from the truth,' the doctor told the Post. 'Contestants are told at the start of the show that there is zero tolerance for any weight-loss drugs.' Dr. Huizenga sued The New York Post, Gwynn, and other defendants for defamation. In 2019, a judge ruled in Gwynn's favor in Dr. Huizenga's lawsuit against her. Judge Laura Taylor Swain said that the doctor couldn't prove actual malice in his case. '[He] has not averred any facts regarding his conversations or interactions with Gwynn, or even about the existence or nature of the allegedly illicit pills, that would permit the Court to draw a plausible inference that the Gwynn Statements were untrue, such that Gwynn acted with knowledge of their falsity when making them,' the judge's decision said, per THR. What is Joelle Gwynn doing now? Gwynn will appear in the Fit for TV docuseries and sometimes gives life updates on Facebook, but for the most part she is no longer a public figure. She briefly ran a YouTube channel and Instagram page called Menopause Hottie, a 'regular VLog and podcast on menopause,' in 2021. Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, Friday, August 15, Netflix Solve the daily Crossword
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Former Biggest Loser contestant reveals details of outrageous treatment on the show... but trainer has no remorse
Former Biggest Loser contestant Joelle Gwynn has admitted she was left mortified after being verbally 'abused' by fitness trainer Bob Harper on the show – but he has defended his behavior because it made for 'good TV'. Joelle, from Detroit Michigan, appeared on season seven of The Biggest Loser in 2009 alongside her then-friend, Carla Triplett. She applied to be on the show in a desperate attempt to lose weight and tipped the scales at 309 pounds at the beginning of her journey. However, despite having turned to The Biggest Loser for help, Joelle ended up being humiliated on television when Bob, 59, repeatedly screamed at her during a group workout. At the time, he had instructed the group to run on the treadmill for 30 seconds, but when he noticed that Joelle had given up around the 20-second mark, he began to yell at her. 'What the f*** Joelle? Every single time it's 20 seconds. Every single time. What is it? Tell me what it is?' he spat. 'You don't come off for 30 seconds, ok? That's all I'm asking. Just do that. God!' His acid-tongued takedown became one of the show's most memorable - and most uncomfortable - moments to date. And now, speaking out about the scenes 16 years later in Netflix's docuseries, Fit for TV: The Reality Behind the Biggest Loser, Joelle admitted that it was so horrible to experience that she went 'out of body'. Joelle was visibly upset watching the moment back. 'That country bumpkin of a man berates me in such a way that I've never seen on the show before,' she said. 'I've never seen someone get abused like that. It was was very, very, very embarrassing.' 'It brought me back to home. I'm there because I would get sh** like that at home and eat, so you cursing me out doesn't help me,' she continued. 'I do not care for Bob. F*** you, Bob Harper. Your little dog too.' Bob, however, stands by his treatment of Joelle and defends his behavior because he was on a mission to make 'good TV'. 'When it comes to Biggest Loser, always remember we were trying to make an entertaining show that was on prime time network television,' he said. 'What's more important for weight loss? 'We all know it's diet, but that becomes boring television. You know what's not boring television? To see us in a gym yelling, screaming… that's inspirational, that's good TV.' 'And producers love that sh**,' he continued. 'They were like, "we want them to puke, we want the madness of it all!"' Turning his attention to the scene with Joelle, Bob said: 'The TV execs were very happy because that's how you create the drama… it wasn't about the treadmill, the picture was bigger than that. 'It was like her committing to something and finishing it. It wasn't one of my proudest moments.' As Bob previously claimed, Biggest Loser producers were very much interested in making television intended to stun audiences. And that's exactly what executive producer David Broome attested to. 'We wanted the show to be shocking,' he said. 'One great big kumbaya doesn't make good television, I can promise you that.' The Biggest Loser, created by Ben Silverman, Mark Koops, and Broome, was a competition reality show that initially ran on NBC for 17 seasons from 2004 to 2016 before moving to USA Network in 2020. The show featured obese or overweight contestants who competed to win a cash prize by losing the highest percentage of weight relative to their initial weight. Bob was one of the show's main trainers alongside Jillian Michaels. Fit for TV is a three-part documentary series that takes an inside look at the making of the hit reality TV competition, exploring the good, the bad, and the complicated. The series features interviews with former contestants, trainers, producers, and health professionals and explores how the experience shaped the lives of those involved with the show long after the cameras stopped rolling. While Biggest Loser was contentious for several reasons, one particularly controversial part of the show was the 'temptation' segment. In the segment, contestants were faced with a 'temptation', which would usually require them to gamble by eating or drinking delicious but high-calorie foods in exchange for what may seem to be a beneficial trade-off. On one occasion, the temptation saw the contestants put in a room with plates and plates of fast food. Whoever ate the most calorific food was granted a personal trainer for an hour. Speaking in the Netflix docuseries, executive producer JD Roth defended the segment. 'Temptation is real life,' he said. 'I can't say that 100 percent of the temptations we got right, but I can say that life is full of temptations.' Fellow exec David agreed. 'I needed that show to be relatable to the rest of the world who aren't in this dome that we've created,' he said. 'You pass a cupcake in your refrigerator or on your counter, or you pass that fast food restaurant on your way home from work. How can we get that in The Biggest Loser.' Once they had appeared on the show, it wasn't unusual for contestants of The Biggest Loser to start piling the weight that they had lost back on. This was largely down to them having to return to work and their families, and not having the luxury of six hours a day to work out. One contestant, Danny Cahill, pleaded with producers to consider creating an aftercare program. Danny won season eight of The Biggest Loser and shed a whopping 239 pounds in six months, after initially weighing 460 pounds. But, following the show, he regained the weight that he had lost. Speaking in the documentary, Danny said that there was more producers could have done to support the stars of the show. 'I did call one of the producers and said people need help,' he said. 'I even brought up, could we do an aftercare program? Lots of money has been put aside from the show, psychological help, gym memberships, recovery, whatever it took and pretty much no one was interested in doing anything like that. 'I think it's really a shame. 'Hundreds of millions of dollars that was made from the show, even if just a little bit of that was put aside for the 300-400 people that had been on the show I think they would have had a lot more success.' Responding to the calls for sufficient post-show help, producer David said: 'Certainly, we would have loved to have had aftercare, but we're a television show, we're a television production. 'Without endless pots of money. NBC weren't going to give it to us, and nor were they wrong in that.'
