Key Points
Former The Biggest Loser cohost Jillian Michaels is responding to accusations included in a new Netflix docuseries, Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser.
The series includes comments by former cohost Bob Harper and medical consultant Dr. Robert Huizenga alleging several ethical breaches concerning Michaels.
Michaels said she was meeting with Justin Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman to consider legal options.
Jillian Michaels has loudly broken her silence on a contentious new docuseries on Netflix, which makes claims about the former The Biggest Loser cohost in a variety of its more unsavory scandals.
The fitness guru–turned–conservative commentator on Tuesday flooded Instagram with receipts that she claimed refute some of the allegations made against her in Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, which arrived on the platform on Aug. 15.
The three-part docuseries contains accusations from former cohost Bob Harper, former medical consultant Dr. Robert Huizenga, and other cast and crew against Michaels, the series’ producers, and its network, NBC. Some of the unethical behavior Michaels is alleged to have conspired on with producers included restricting contestants’ calorie intakes to dangerous levels, administering caffeine pills, and withholding both medical treatment and medications from some contestants.
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to representatives for Michaels, Harper, Huizenga, Netflix, and NBC.
“Wild how some folks still lie like it’s 1985 before texts and email were a thing,” Michaels wrote in the first of four posts, this one alleging that both Harper and Huizenga “not only knew about the caffeine pills,” but approved of the idea, which Michaels credited to Harper.
In another, Michaels responded to “the allegation that I restricted contestants from eating enough calories” by sharing what she claimed was “direct written correspondence with a contestant,” season 11 winner Olivia Ward. In the alleged correspondence, Michaels instructs Ward to “eat 1600 [calories] tomorrow,” in apparent contrast to season 2 contestant Suzanne Mendonca’s claim in Fit for TV that she and her fellow competitors were eating 800 calories per day.
Michaels also called in to TMZ on Tuesday, telling site founder and executive producer Harvey Levin that the docuseries is “filled with so many lies, and, of course, I have the emails and the text messages to back all this up.”
While speaking with Levin, Michaels openly deliberated whether she and her team would “pursue this legally, [or] do I just do a data dump and give you all the emails and all the receipts?” She noted she was meeting later that day with attorney Bryan Freedman — Justin Baldoni‘s lawyer in the actor’s high-profile dispute with Blake Lively — to discuss possible legal action against Netflix, Harper, and Huizenga.
The former fitness trainer cohosted The Biggest Loser during its first 15 seasons, except for seasons 3, 12, and 13. She left the show in 2014, citing “fundamental differences” with the show’s producers as the reason for her exit.
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Trae Patton/NBC
Jillian Michaels, Bob Harper, and Dolvett Quince on ‘The Biggest Loser’
Among Harper’s claims in Fit for TV is the allegation that Michaels did not reach out to check up on him following a heart attack he suffered in 2017.
“We weren’t besties, but we were partners on a television show for a very long time,” he explained. Harper said that Michaels’ silence “spoke volumes to me,” adding, “I would not expect Jillian Michaels to do anything other than what she wants to do.”
Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser is currently streaming on Netflix.
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