Former The Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels has slammed Netflix‘s documentary Fit For TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser and threatened to take legal action over the claims made by fellow trainer Bob Harper and series doctor Dr. Robert Huizenga.
Last week, Netflix released a documentary series looking back at the hugely popular reality series The Biggest Loser and the problematic techniques employed by creators, producers and trainers to make the show as dramatic as possible. While former Harper and Huizenga were interviewed for the documentary, Michaels refused to take part.
Now, Michaels has taken to Instagram with a bunch of posts — and a heap of receipts — to refute a series of allegations made by the series, including claims that she severely restricted her contestants’ calories, broke the show’s rules to give contestants caffeine pills and that she told a contestant their weight loss would make her “a millionaire”.
In Fit For TV, Harper and Huizenga allege that Michaels broke the rules to give contestants caffeine pills. In the first post, Michaels shared screenshots of an email chain with Harper — whom she worked alongside on The Biggest Loser from 2003 to 2014 — series producers and Huizenga’s “guy” who allegedly “distributed the fat burners” to the contestants.
“Dr. Huizenga did approve caffeine pills on many seasons of Biggest Loser,” Michaels wrote.
“Bob Harper not only knew about the caffeine pills, the ‘stackers fat burner’ was actually his suggestion,” she continued.
“I wanted to use my brand instead because they were cleaner and had no more than 200mg of caffeine (equivalent to a strong cup of coffee). Caffeine was NEVER banned on The Biggest Loser. Wild how some folks still lie like it’s 1985 before texts and email were a thing.”
Jillian went on to share her “second to last” text sent to her former training colleague in 2014, writing, “take from it what you will”.
In the series, one of the contestants claimed Michaels told them that they were “going to make me a millionaire”.
Michaels not only denied these claims, but also shared text messages from her business partner with two of the show’s executive producers, Mark Koops and Dave Broome to back it up.
“I want to state unequivocally that this is false. The full moment was captured on camera, and both the contestant and I were wearing microphones. If such a comment had been made, it would exist on the audio record,” she wrote.
The next allegation Michaels sought to correct was that she restricted contestants’ calories in an unsafe way.
“With respect to the allegation that I restricted contestants from eating enough calories, I have an example of a direct written correspondence with a contestant, while she was home for the holidays during filming, in which I explicitly instructed her to consume 1,600 calories per day,” she wrote, alongside the email.
“Additionally, the two other emails posted here are standard communications with the show’s producers and medical staff, emphasising the ongoing priority of ensuring contestants were adequately nourished and the need to provide a steady supply of fresh food in the Biggest Loser house to guarantee ready access to calories.”
The final concern addressed by Michaels during her Instagram spree related to 2014 winner, Rachel Frederickson, who made headlines for dropping more than 60 per cent of her bodyweight during the show’s seven-month filming period — an incredibly huge amount of weight to lose in such a short period.
Fit For TV revisited claims that Rachel’s weight loss journey had gone too far and that the series was pushing contestants to extremely unhealthy lengths. Michaels says that she voiced her concerns at the time.
“Not only did I never once get the opportunity to personally work with Rachel Frederickson in any capacity — I raised serious concerns both publicly and to NBC directly about contestant health and the condition of Rachel in particular at Biggest Loser’s Season 15 finale,” Michaels claimed.
“In response, I received a direct email from Paul Telegdy, then-Chairman of NBC Entertainment. In that email, he made clear that if I did not publicly condone the appearance of contestant Rachel Frederickson at the show’s finale, NBC would pursue legal action against me. I resigned from The Biggest Loser shortly thereafter.”
Following the flurry of Instagram posts, TMZ reported that Michaels has been meeting with lawyer Bryan Freedman — the same lawyer as Justin Baldoni during his legal battle with Blake Lively — to potentially seek legal action.
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