Olivia Plath Says New Duggar Family Docuseries Was 'Triggering to Watch': 'That Was My Life'
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'Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets,' which premiered Friday, explores the family's troubling ties to a radical religious organization
Janelle Putrich Photography
Olivia Plath is detailing how the new Duggar family-centered docuseries, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, hit a little too close to home for her.
The Welcome to Plathville star, 25, spoke about how the Prime Video docuseries about the Duggar family and their controversial religion, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, was “triggering to watch,” given her similar experiences with faith, in an Instagram Story post on Saturday.
“That was my life up until a few years ago,” Plath said. “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.”
Plath then shared that she received an “overwhelming response from people saying, ‘Please, let’s talk about this,’ ” which she said prompted her and her sister Lydia to decide to talk about their experience as “ex-[fundamentalist] and ex-cult kids” more in-depth during an Instagram Live on Monday.
“I will say, the realm in which my public life exists, there's a lot of things I can't say,” the reality star admitted. “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.”
“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?” Plath added, then clarifying that she is "not really religious anymore.”
Related: Olivia Plath Posts About Not 'Excusing Abusive Behaviors' After Welcome to Plathville Finale
Premiering in November 2019, Welcome to Plathville initially followed Ethan and his close-knit family — his wife Olivia, parents Barry and Kim Plath, and eight siblings — and their lives as a traditional conservative bunch living in rural Georgia while largely abstaining from technology amid today's digital age. (Ethan and Olivia now live in Minneapolis with his 19-year-old sister, Moriah Plath.)
The four-part limited series focusing on the Duggars, which premiered on Friday, meanwhile, explores the wholesome family's troubling ties to a radical religious organization.
In doing so, it shows how the organization has shaped — and negatively impacted — the once-beloved TLC brood, which has since faced a bevy of scandals.
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Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets is now streaming in full on Prime Video.
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