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Reality TV Nightmare! Families Who Have Been Torn Apart by Reality TV: The Gosselins, Duggars and More

Entertainment

Sep 20, 2023 6:25 pm·

By Life & Style Staff

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Families Who’ve Been Torn Apart by Reality TV: Gosselins, Duggars, More

’19 Kids & Counting’

Jill Duggar was the breakout star of 19 Kids and Counting, but in her memoir, Counting the Cost, she claims dad Jim Bob Duggar was verbally abusive. “You treat me worse than my pedophile brother,” she once told him. Jill, 32, says Jim Bob, 58, controlled almost all aspects of her life, including pressuring her and husband Derick Dillard, 34, into the spinoff Counting On against their wishes. And it almost destroyed her marriage. “It definitely got between us,” Jill said, adding that while Jim Bob refused to pay her for the 10 years she appeared on camera, her father banked an estimated $8 million. “He’d grown rich.”

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‘Good Bones’

After renovating houses side by side for eight seasons of Good Bones, it’s Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine’s relationship that seemingly needs an overhaul. On a recent episode of her podcast, Mina, 35, revealed she and mom Karen, 60, “aren’t in a great place.” One reason: Mina is the sole owner of Two Chicks and a Hammer, their home rehab business. “I have all the risk,” she said. “Everyone else is there having fun and they’re getting paid to be there … I, as one single human, carry the weight of everything you see on TV. … That’s why I’m so damn cranky all the time.”

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‘Sister Wives’

When Sister Wives began in 2010, proud polygamist Kody Brown hoped to show love could be “multiplied, not divided.” However, over 17 seasons, all but one of his wives have left him. Christine, 51, Janelle, 54, and Meri, 52, each ended their spiritual marriages with the former firearms salesman, 54, after they realized, just as viewers did, that he clearly favored fourth (and legal) wife Robyn, 44. “It’s been painful, a lot of finger pointing and blame,” Kody has said of the splits. “I could have done a lot better.”

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‘Real Housewives of New Jersey’

Teresa Giudice has long had issues with Melissa Gorga, but the sisters-in-law nearly came to blows at the end of Season 13 and weren’t speaking by the Real Housewives of New Jersey’s reunion episode. Teresa, 51, recently blamed “fame and money” for the situation with her brother, Joe, and his wife, both 44. “When people want to be famous, they’ll do anything,” she has said. “People like a paycheck and … will throw anybody under [the bus] … I just never thought my family would do that to me.”

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‘Jon & Kate Plus 8’

Collin Gosselin — one of the sextuplets from Jon & Kate Plus 8 — has no relationship with mom Kate, 48, and hasn’t spoken to most of his seven siblings in years. When ET asked the 19-year-old if his family’s participation in the series “ruined his life,” he answered, simply, “I think so.” Collin even credits the constant cameras for his parents’ divorce. “The pressure of being in front of the whole world and every mistake you make is out there … was a big influence of them not being together,” he said of Kate and Jon, 46.

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