Jillian Michaels has responded to some of the claims made against her in Netflix’s “Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser,” revealing to NewsNation that she thought “nobody would care” about the docuseries.
Unlike fellow “Biggest Loser” trainer Bob Harper, Michaels did not participate in the “Fit for TV” doc, which explores the behind-the-scenes conditions of the NBC weight-loss competition series and the treatment of its contestants. Consequently, in the days since its premiere on Aug. 15, Michaels has publicly refuted many of the claims made against her.
While speaking with NewsNation’s “On Balance” host Leland Vittert on Thursday night, Michaels was first asked why she believes Netflix chose to make “Fit for TV” nearly 10 years after “The Biggest Loser” originally went off the air in 2016.
“I honest to God don’t know,” Michaels responded. “When I heard about the documentary, I thought nobody would care. I was like, ‘No one’s going to care about this. It’s gonna come, it’s gonna go, moving on.’ So I really don’t have an answer as to why. I know that Netflix was extremely effective in their marketing strategy, like, ‘Jillian is such a ruthless bitch.’”
Michaels went on specifically push back against one of the docuseries’ claims. In the documentary, Harper and Dr. Robert Huizenga, a sports doctor who worked with the “Biggest Loser” contestants, alleged that Michaels was caught in Season 15 of the competition series giving caffeine supplements and caffeine pills to her team members that purportedly violated the show’s rules. Michaels, for her part, said that is an inaccurate assessment of what occurred.
“The contestants were allowed unlimited amounts of caffeine in the form of coffee and other beverages. I did not agree with this. I made that very clear to the show’s doctor, the show’s dietician and the show’s producers,” Michaels told “On Balance” viewers. “On many seasons of ‘Biggest Loser,’ caffeine pills were actually allowed and distributed by the doctor’s medical staff on campus. I, of course, have the emails to prove that.”
“In this particular season, [Huizenga] randomly decided that he was going to pull them during the show. I disagreed with it. I made it clear to the executive producer and the show’s dietician that I disagreed with it, I have the emails to prove that,” Michaels continued. “And this was wrong – I take full responsibility for this part – I did it anyway. I didn’t agree with him, I didn’t respect him for a host of other reasons.”
“I said very clearly on the show in an email, ‘I think this is far better than giving them unlimited amounts of coffee because we can control the dose of caffeine that they’re getting,’” the “Biggest Loser” trainer added.
In the same “On Balance” interview, Michaels also addressed the controversy surrounding comments she made on CNN last week defending President Trump’s widely decried, ongoing review of the Smithsonian Institute’s museums.
The comments in question included Michaels’ assertion that Trump is “not whitewashing slavery” and her insistence that “you cannot tie imperialism and racism and slavery just to one race, which is pretty much what every single [museum] exhibit does.” Her remarks provoked incredulity from both her fellow CNN panelists and many viewers watching at home.
“If you actually watch the entire clip, it’s Julie Roginsky who refers to parts of the MAGA base as racist, makes a Hitler reference again to Trump and then says, ‘Slavery is bad. We should talk about it,’” Michaels recalled, noting that she herself was “fully educated and up to speed on the exhibits that the administration has taken umbrage with in the Smithsonian.”
“With confidence, I turn around and I say, ‘He’s not trying to whitewash slavery,’ and I’m about to list all of these other exhibits … where then Ritchie Torres and Abby Phillip bring it back to slavery again. So we were having two separate conversations at the same time,” Michaels argued.
