Duggar docuseries was ‘triggering’ for ‘Welcome to Plathville’ star Olivia Plath
‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’ delved into the family’s connection to an extreme religious group
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Welcome to Plathville" star Olivia Plath felt an unfortunate relatability with the new four-part docuseries "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets."
"That was my life up until a few years ago," Plath revealed in an Instagram story post on Saturday. "A little triggering to watch, but also there is solidarity in having other people speak up and say, ‘Yep, you're not crazy, happened to me too. I know about this.’ That is healing in a way."
"Shiny Happy People" explores the Duggar family's rise to fame and fall from grace after allegations emerged in 2015 that the oldest Duggar son, Josh, had molested five young girls when he was 12. Josh later admitted to molesting four of his younger sisters and a babysitter.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The show, which premiered on Amazon Prime June 1, also covers their involvement in the controversial Institute in Basic Life Principles organization, a fundamentalist Christian group.
DUGGAR DOCUSERIES 'SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE' REVEALS SHOCKING SECRETS ABOUT REALITY TV FAMILY
Ethan and Olivia Plath, in a promo image for the TLC series "Welcome to Plathville." Olivia Plath spoke out saying the Duggar docuseries was "triggering" to watch. (TLC/Welcome to Plathville Season 3)
Similar to the Duggars, Plath appeared on a TLC reality series titled "Welcome to Plathville." The show premiered in 2019 and followed Christian fundamentalists Barry and Kim Plath and their nine children, as they lived their lives in rural Georgia with limited technology. The family’s eldest son, Ethan, married Olivia before the series began.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}After Plath posted on social media, she said she received an "overwhelming response from people saying, ‘Please, let’s talk about this.’" So, she and her sister, Lydia, went live on Instagram Monday to talk about their experience as "ex-[fundamentalist] and ex-cult kids."
"I will say, the realm in which my public life exists, there's a lot of things I can't say," Plath said. "There's a lot of things I want to say about religion, about my past, about the world that I went right back into, and I hadn't known to say them in the public space that exists for me, so I'm gonna get on [Instagram] instead."
The docuseries "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets" premiered on Amazon Prime June 1. (Prime)
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Plath continued, "I'm jumping on to say my experience, to be honest, was decently negative. There's a lot of things that I laugh about now, because what else are you supposed to do?"
She also noted, that she is "not really religious anymore."
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar called the docuseries "derogatory and sensationalized." (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)
In response to the documentary, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar released a statement on their website.
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"The recent ‘documentary’ that talks about our family is sad because in it, we see the media and those with ill intentions hurting people we love," they wrote. "Like other families, ours too has experienced the joys and heartbreaks of life, just in a very public format. This ‘documentary’ paints so much and so many in a derogatory and sensationalized way because sadly that’s the direction of entertainment these days."