Netflix’s tell-all docuseries about The Biggest Loser featured interviews with former contestants, trainer Bob Harper and more people associated with the show — but was Jillian Michaels involved?
During the third part of Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, which premiered on Friday, August 15, the docuseries featured a message that read, “Jillian Michaels declined to participate in this documentary.” (Michaels, 51, was mentioned in all three parts and archive footage of her and Harper was used throughout.)
The nutritionist was a trainer on The Biggest Loser when the show premiered in 2004. She remained on the show for two seasons before being replaced by Kim Lyons. Michaels returned to the reality show in 2007 and was also a trainer in the Australian version of the show from 2006 to 2008.
Michaels exited The Biggest Loser in 2011 before returning for season 14. Her final season was in 2013 but she didn’t come back again before The Biggest Loser ended its original run in 2016.
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The Biggest Loser followed a group of people deemed overweight who would compete in a 30-week competition. The goal was to lose as many pounds as possible to be crowned “the biggest loser” and the NBC series quickly became a cultural phenomenon. The Biggest Loser later received criticism for allegedly pushing contestants to lose weight through intense exercise and calorie-restricted diets.
Michaels, for her part, was accused on the show of cheating by allowing her Loser team to take caffeine pills without doctor’s permission. “I stand by my opinion,” she said during the 2013 episode of the show. “A caffeine supplement is significantly healthier than unlimited amounts of coffee.”
More recently, Michaels reflected on what she felt should have been done differently on the show. She told Today Health in 2021 that The Biggest Loser “needed a mental health professional” to better help the contestants.
“I think there was some random guy they could talk to if they needed, but these people needed deep work,” she explained. “When you have someone that weighs 400 lbs., that’s not just an individual who likes pizza. There’s a whole lot going on there emotionally.”
Michaels also said she didn’t like the game element. “Nobody should have been eliminated. That was my No. 1 issue with the show,” she continued. “But the producers gamified weight loss. It was weight loss on a ticking clock.”
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Despite having some regrets, Michaels wouldn’t take back how she approached the show as a trainer.
“The ones I yelled at are the ones that kept it off,” she shared at the time. “You need them to feel the pain of the way they’ve been living. You need them to have a rock bottom moment where they’re like, ‘I can’t take one more moment.’”
Michaels concluded: “The diet worked amazing. You eat less, you move more, and there you go. The contestants who were unsuccessful when they went home, they had unresolved issues with food.”
While Michaels wasn’t featured in Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, she was still a major topic of conversation. Her fellow trainer Harper, 59, was asked about their friendship — especially following his 2017 heart attack.
“How do I put this? People were always like, ‘You and Jillian have been so close.’ I was like, ‘Well we were close on TV,’” Harper told producers in Friday’s docuseries. “After I had my heart attack, she’s the one person I never heard from. That to me spoke volumes.”
Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser is currently streaming on Netflix.
