Jillian Michaels Talks Leaving The Biggest Loser, A Solo Reality Show, And ReBranding!

Jillian Michaels famously left The Biggest Loser because she felt the show had taken a negative turn and destroyed her reputation as a health and wellness advocate in favor of promoting dramatic weightless results. But Jillian hasn’t left reality TV behind for good – she’s embarking on her own solo show and she’s also rebranding herself after taking a public beating. 

In an effort to reestablish her image after her merry-go-round relationship with the Biggest Loser, Jillian now reveals a softer approach – and a more down-to-earth one. Like “hell no!” she doesn’t like to exercise, “I watch the clock every minute,” the personal trainer admits.  

“People assume that I think I’m better than that show. I do not. Also, there’s a misconception that I keep leaving,” Jillian explains. “On season three, I was fired. On season 11, I asked for time off to start a family. In this go-round, it was a mutual decision. I wanted to make some creative changes, but I was not a producer. I need some control in something with my name attached to it.” 

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Insisting she has “never cared that much” about what people think of her, Jillian says criticism started to take its tole when she became a mother. “Everybody has haters. I will say that when you have kids, a little bit of that devil-may-care attitude does go out the window. There were a few things that were said to them in The Biggest Loser days that were hard to hear.”

One of the most difficult things for Jillian was how the show only featured her negative moments with contestants, instead of the positive, encouraging ones. “I stopped watching it a long time ago,” she shares with Health.com. “I knew all the miraculous things that had gone on that week. None of them made it on screen. Watching it was like looking in a fun-house mirror.” 

“But I have learned that taking the higher ground can defuse a situation. That’s power,” Jillian adds. “It’s so important to pause and then play out a situation in your head: If I do this—even though it feels really good in the moment—what’s the outcome going to be?” Which is one of the reasons she ultimately decided parting ways with her Biggest Loser image was the way to go. 

What’s next for Jillian is channeling her message to “utilize fitness as a tool to empower people.” She explains, “When you’re physically strong, it transcends into other facets of your life. Your health is a platform to build on.” That includes writing a memoir on getting your body back after pregnancy, a clothing line with Kmart, and of course, a reality show! 

“I’ve been approached about having mutual approval over everything to do a reality show,” Jillian confesses. But this won’t just be Jillian talking Fitness, it will be a more intimate glance at her persona life.  “It’s interesting because we can talk about parenting, relationships, health—all the things that are important to me. But then I think, ‘What if I open up and people attack us just because we’re a gay family?’ It scares the hell out of me.” 

[Photo Credit: Mitchell Zachs/WENN.com]

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