NEED TO KNOW<\/h3>\n\n- \n\n
A decade ago, Jacob Roloff announced his exit from Little People, Big World<\/em>, the TLC reality series that made him a household name at age 9<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n- \n\n
The former reality TV star and his wife, Isabel, sat down with PEOPLE for a wide-ranging interview about their private life a decade after his contentious departure<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
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\u201cI certainly don\u2019t regret it,\u201d says Jacob. \u201cBut I\u2019m still working out what it all means and what I can do to move forward\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
A decade ago, when Jacob Roloff<\/a> announced his exit from Little People, Big World<\/em><\/a>, he did so defiantly.\u00a0<\/p>\nIn an Instagram post<\/a> \u2014 shared on July 6, 2016 \u2014\u00a0Roloff acknowledged the influx of messages he had received from fans asking him to return to the hit TLC reality series, on which he starred for 10 years alongside the rest of his nuclear family.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m posting this to say that that will never happen,\u201d he penned in his lengthy caption. \u201cThe family that is filmed is not my family. They are the Roloff characters and I have scarcely anything in common with them, nor do I want to be a character myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
And just like that, Roloff\u2019s era as a reality TV personality \u2014 which began when he was only 9 years old \u2014 had come to a close.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\nIsabel and Jacob RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
\u201cI certainly don\u2019t regret it,\u201d Roloff, now 29, tells PEOPLE in an interview about his time on the series. \u201cBut I\u2019m still working out what it all means and what I can do to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
When LPBW<\/em> first premiered in 2006, it quickly made the Roloff family household names. The show followed Jacob\u2019s parents, Matt and Amy, both of whom have dwarfism, and their family of six on Roloff Farms in Oregon. Behind the scenes, things were darker than they seemed.<\/p>\nIn 2020, Jacob alleged<\/a> that he had been molested by Chris Cardamone, a former producer on the show, between 2007 and 2010. (Cardamone did not respond to PEOPLE\u2019s request for comment at the time, while TLC told PEOPLE in a statement, \u201cTLC was just informed about an alleged encounter that occurred years ago involving a third party connected to the production of Little People, Big World<\/em>. We are saddened and troubled by this very serious allegation, and TLC will work cooperatively with the authorities.\u201d )<\/p>\nAnd two years later, Jacob wrote in a post<\/a> on X that he was \u201cpaid roughly $6\/hr to be filmed for my whole childhood,\u201d adding, \u201cI wish I kept filming but I value my principles and my soul. Life is complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n![\"Isabel](\"https:\/\/hermes.media.static.aol.com\/media\/2026\/07\/09\/779c1082-6861-39ad-8f3b-7ef91a246616\/86f4a5ec-354d-45a2-99b9-c22a43bc4332.jpg\"\/)
<\/div>\nIsabel and Jacob RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
So when he finally made his exit from LPBW<\/em> at the age of 18, Jacob tells PEOPLE he felt like he needed to \u201cdisappear.\u201d In those early years after his departure, he went to Humboldt County, Calif., where he got a regular job trimming weeds.<\/p>\n\u201cThose people were not watching reality TV, so they were like, \u2018Hey, what\u2019s your name?\u2019 \u201d he remembers. \u201cI was like, \u2018That\u2019s beautiful. I\u2019ll stay here.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Outside of the reality TV spotlight, Jacob married<\/a> his longtime girlfriend, Isabel, in 2019, and the pair welcomed<\/a> their son Matteo in 2021. Slowly, the pair began to share more of their life online with their nearly 500,000 Instagram followers. And they eventually moved back to Roloff Farms, where they now manage 70 acres of land, grow pumpkins and raise their 60 animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re living on the farm now, a double-wide that my dad used to live in,\u201d Jacob says. \u201cMe and my cousin Max, my dad\u2019s nephew, we manage the place,\u201d he adds, noting that they still do pumpkin season at the farm, which will return later this October<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cAnd I take care of the animals,\u201d Isabel adds. \u201cAnd then I grow flowers. Our one son, Mateo, is growing up a lot like Jacob did, just a farm kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacob adds that one of the joys of parenting has been watching his son participate in the same farm activities he did as a child.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing him pick the fruit from some of the same trees that I picked fruit from on the farm here, that has been incredible,\u201d he says of watching his son. \u201cI have very few memories of life before the show, so I\u2019m seeing him at the exact stage. There\u2019s something beautiful about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a big personality and he speaks his mind and we\u2019re raising him that way,\u201d Isabel adds. \u201cIt\u2019s a good reminder that you\u2019re raising an individual and not an extension of you. A lot of parents have so many expectations of who they want their kids to be. He\u2019s a little bit like him, a little bit like me, but he\u2019s also very individual. He\u2019s very himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his complicated relationship with LPBW<\/em>, Jacob tells PEOPLE that he\u2019s managed to maintain fairly \u201cnormal\u201d relationships with his family members. He says he\u2019s closest to his brother Jeremy, mostly because he lives nearby, and their kids often play together. Jacob\u2019s mom babysits Matteo \u201cevery once in a while,\u201d he says. And his cousin Max also lives with them on the farm.<\/p>\n\u201cEverybody understands that, for the cousins\u2019 and the kids\u2019 sake, let\u2019s all just put our differences aside and maintain those relationships,\u201d adds Isabel. \u201cHis family is just in a good place, I\u2019d say, from where it\u2019s been in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n![\"Jacob](\"https:\/\/hermes.media.static.aol.com\/media\/2026\/07\/09\/779c1082-6861-39ad-8f3b-7ef91a246616\/1c1fbc6b-b1bc-4bec-ac39-c5feef0d7f84.jpg\"\/)
<\/div>\nJacob and Isabel RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
And though they share their life online, they have one very strict rule: They will not post their son\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if I weren\u2019t on reality TV, I think it would\u2019ve come to the same conclusion that there\u2019s a lot of risk with oversharing your kids,\u201d says Jacob. \u201cPeople get weird. Even without showing Mateo, they\u2019ll make comments that are like, \u2018Oh, he must be ugly or he must be this or he must be that.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Naturally, adds Isabel, the pair are cognizant of Jacob\u2019s childhood on reality TV and the comments he was constantly subjected to from the show\u2019s audience, even before he could decide for himself whether he wanted to be involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople being able to project their own decisions over what they see on TV \u2014 we never wanted to allow that into our child\u2019s life,\u201d she says. \u201cJacob made it very clear when we got pregnant \u2014 it was one of the first things he said \u2014 that we\u2019re not posting our son online.\u201d<\/p>\n
Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\nSo why continue to share their lives at all?<\/p>\n
The honest answer, says Jacob, is that it felt a bit \u201cimpractical\u201d to hide the fact that they were parents from the world.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"Jacob](\"https:\/\/hermes.media.static.aol.com\/media\/2026\/07\/09\/779c1082-6861-39ad-8f3b-7ef91a246616\/3f220142-925c-4852-aaca-957108ca68a8.jpg\"\/)
<\/div>\nJacob RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
\u201cI think Jacob understood that, since he has a public profile, people are going to ask all these things,\u201d adds Isabel. \u201cJacob enjoys sharing about being a father and all the things he does with Mateo on the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now, she continues, they get to tell their story on their own terms: \u201cIt\u2019s healing to be able to live here on the farm without the cameras around all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Says Jacob: \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a new era.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A decade ago, Jacob Roloff announced his exit from Little People, Big World<\/em>, the TLC reality series that made him a household name at age 9<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n The former reality TV star and his wife, Isabel, sat down with PEOPLE for a wide-ranging interview about their private life a decade after his contentious departure<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n \u201cI certainly don\u2019t regret it,\u201d says Jacob. \u201cBut I\u2019m still working out what it all means and what I can do to move forward\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n A decade ago, when Jacob Roloff<\/a> announced his exit from Little People, Big World<\/em><\/a>, he did so defiantly.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an Instagram post<\/a> \u2014 shared on July 6, 2016 \u2014\u00a0Roloff acknowledged the influx of messages he had received from fans asking him to return to the hit TLC reality series, on which he starred for 10 years alongside the rest of his nuclear family.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m posting this to say that that will never happen,\u201d he penned in his lengthy caption. \u201cThe family that is filmed is not my family. They are the Roloff characters and I have scarcely anything in common with them, nor do I want to be a character myself.\u201d<\/p>\n And just like that, Roloff\u2019s era as a reality TV personality \u2014 which began when he was only 9 years old \u2014 had come to a close.<\/p>\n Isabel and Jacob RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI certainly don\u2019t regret it,\u201d Roloff, now 29, tells PEOPLE in an interview about his time on the series. \u201cBut I\u2019m still working out what it all means and what I can do to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n When LPBW<\/em> first premiered in 2006, it quickly made the Roloff family household names. The show followed Jacob\u2019s parents, Matt and Amy, both of whom have dwarfism, and their family of six on Roloff Farms in Oregon. Behind the scenes, things were darker than they seemed.<\/p>\n In 2020, Jacob alleged<\/a> that he had been molested by Chris Cardamone, a former producer on the show, between 2007 and 2010. (Cardamone did not respond to PEOPLE\u2019s request for comment at the time, while TLC told PEOPLE in a statement, \u201cTLC was just informed about an alleged encounter that occurred years ago involving a third party connected to the production of Little People, Big World<\/em>. We are saddened and troubled by this very serious allegation, and TLC will work cooperatively with the authorities.\u201d )<\/p>\n And two years later, Jacob wrote in a post<\/a> on X that he was \u201cpaid roughly $6\/hr to be filmed for my whole childhood,\u201d adding, \u201cI wish I kept filming but I value my principles and my soul. Life is complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n Isabel and Jacob RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n So when he finally made his exit from LPBW<\/em> at the age of 18, Jacob tells PEOPLE he felt like he needed to \u201cdisappear.\u201d In those early years after his departure, he went to Humboldt County, Calif., where he got a regular job trimming weeds.<\/p>\n \u201cThose people were not watching reality TV, so they were like, \u2018Hey, what\u2019s your name?\u2019 \u201d he remembers. \u201cI was like, \u2018That\u2019s beautiful. I\u2019ll stay here.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Outside of the reality TV spotlight, Jacob married<\/a> his longtime girlfriend, Isabel, in 2019, and the pair welcomed<\/a> their son Matteo in 2021. Slowly, the pair began to share more of their life online with their nearly 500,000 Instagram followers. And they eventually moved back to Roloff Farms, where they now manage 70 acres of land, grow pumpkins and raise their 60 animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re living on the farm now, a double-wide that my dad used to live in,\u201d Jacob says. \u201cMe and my cousin Max, my dad\u2019s nephew, we manage the place,\u201d he adds, noting that they still do pumpkin season at the farm, which will return later this October<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I take care of the animals,\u201d Isabel adds. \u201cAnd then I grow flowers. Our one son, Mateo, is growing up a lot like Jacob did, just a farm kid.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacob adds that one of the joys of parenting has been watching his son participate in the same farm activities he did as a child.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing him pick the fruit from some of the same trees that I picked fruit from on the farm here, that has been incredible,\u201d he says of watching his son. \u201cI have very few memories of life before the show, so I\u2019m seeing him at the exact stage. There\u2019s something beautiful about that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s got a big personality and he speaks his mind and we\u2019re raising him that way,\u201d Isabel adds. \u201cIt\u2019s a good reminder that you\u2019re raising an individual and not an extension of you. A lot of parents have so many expectations of who they want their kids to be. He\u2019s a little bit like him, a little bit like me, but he\u2019s also very individual. He\u2019s very himself.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite his complicated relationship with LPBW<\/em>, Jacob tells PEOPLE that he\u2019s managed to maintain fairly \u201cnormal\u201d relationships with his family members. He says he\u2019s closest to his brother Jeremy, mostly because he lives nearby, and their kids often play together. Jacob\u2019s mom babysits Matteo \u201cevery once in a while,\u201d he says. And his cousin Max also lives with them on the farm.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody understands that, for the cousins\u2019 and the kids\u2019 sake, let\u2019s all just put our differences aside and maintain those relationships,\u201d adds Isabel. \u201cHis family is just in a good place, I\u2019d say, from where it\u2019s been in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacob and Isabel RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n And though they share their life online, they have one very strict rule: They will not post their son\u2019s face.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if I weren\u2019t on reality TV, I think it would\u2019ve come to the same conclusion that there\u2019s a lot of risk with oversharing your kids,\u201d says Jacob. \u201cPeople get weird. Even without showing Mateo, they\u2019ll make comments that are like, \u2018Oh, he must be ugly or he must be this or he must be that.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n Naturally, adds Isabel, the pair are cognizant of Jacob\u2019s childhood on reality TV and the comments he was constantly subjected to from the show\u2019s audience, even before he could decide for himself whether he wanted to be involved.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople being able to project their own decisions over what they see on TV \u2014 we never wanted to allow that into our child\u2019s life,\u201d she says. \u201cJacob made it very clear when we got pregnant \u2014 it was one of the first things he said \u2014 that we\u2019re not posting our son online.\u201d<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n So why continue to share their lives at all?<\/p>\n The honest answer, says Jacob, is that it felt a bit \u201cimpractical\u201d to hide the fact that they were parents from the world.<\/p>\n Jacob RoloffCredit: Shannon Weiss Photography<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI think Jacob understood that, since he has a public profile, people are going to ask all these things,\u201d adds Isabel. \u201cJacob enjoys sharing about being a father and all the things he does with Mateo on the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n And now, she continues, they get to tell their story on their own terms: \u201cIt\u2019s healing to be able to live here on the farm without the cameras around all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Says Jacob: \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a new era.\u201d<\/p>\n Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>