Jim Bob Duggar says his family’s reality show won’t be canceled despite a recent petition calling for TLC to stop airing it.
The petition sprung up after the Duggar clan supported legislation that upset some activists.
Jim Bob, the father of 19 children with Michelle Duggar, told the crowd at Hannibal-LaGrange University recently that the petition won’t succeed.
“They won’t succeed,” he said. “Our show is the number one show on TLC. We love everybody. It’s a small group creating this fuss.
“All it has done is give us more exposure. We’ve gained 50,000 Facebook fans last week. God is expanding our borders through the national media.”
Jim Bob and Michelle spoke at the university’s Booster Banquet on November 21, though their comments were only made public recently.
Responding to criticism about how they are discriminating against certain groups, Jim Bob said “We love everybody, but we don’t always agree with them.”
The couple also shared how they met and fell in love in high school, and their now controversial decision to stop using birth control because they blamed a miscarriage on the pill.
Jim Bob also recounted how he ran for office in Arkansas and won, and after serving four years was urged to run for the Senate. Although he lost with 22 percent of the vote, a photographer snapped pictures of the family, then with 13 children. That led to an interview with Parents Magazine and then a documentary from the Discovery Channel.
That led to their television show, which is indeed the highest-rated series on TLC, with the ratings only rising with each season.
