Jinger Duggar reveals how 'loved ones' reacted when she slammed family's ultraconservative church

Jinger Duggar Vuolo revealed that she 'had loved ones' who were 'very unkind' to her when she denounced the church in which she was raised.

The 31-year-old, along with her 18 siblings, was brought up to be devout followers of the Institute Of Basic Life Principles, founded by shunned minister Bill Gothard.

Under the modesty strictures of the organization, women and girls were forbidden to wear trousers and had to wear skirts or dresses going past their knees. 

She was also prohibited from dancing, dating or listening to certain types of music, and left in constant fear of straying outside the bounds of the church's teachings.

Although she left the organization in 2017, she remained a Christian and published her memoir Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith From Fear in 2023.

Now she has looked back on the reactions she got to the book, including some of the 'very harsh things' that were said, in an interview with People.

Jinger married her husband Jeremy Vuolo in 2016 and the pair have since welcomed two daughters together - Felicity, six, and Evangeline, four.  

In October of this past year, they exultantly announced that they are expecting another baby who is due sometime this March. 

She is now promoting a new memoir called People Pleaser: Breaking Free From The Burden Of Imaginary Expectations, out next Tuesday.

Jinger, who grew up in front of TV cameras on her family's reality show 19 Kids And Counting, has now revealed her thought process on leaving their church.

She attempted to 'to focus my thoughts on how can I love and serve the people who've been so hurt by this teaching' in spite of 'what all the critics are going to say.'

Jinger decided: 'I'm going to just put all that aside and say, no, I want to do what I feel called to do and that's to speak truth. 

'So let me just put on my blinders and focus on that and share my story, and then whatever the outcome is, I know I've done what I'm supposed to do.'

Once she broke with the church, she found it 'so freeing' to not be 'consumed by this fear' of talking openly about her problems with its rules.

'Yes, there were critics. Yes, there were people who were saying very harsh things. There were loved ones that would say things that were very unkind,' she said. 

'It was not easy. But at the end of the day, I realized it was the best decision. It was the best thing that I could have done, to love these people by sharing truth.'

Jinger reflected: 'That was something that was freeing for me because...the more that I'm thinking clearly through the "why" behind I want to speak truth, I need to stand up for the vulnerable. My people-pleasing before would never have allowed me to do that. I would've been silent.'

She went on: 'Whenever I first realized I was a people pleaser, I saw elements of it when I was younger in my life. There were many times where I would think: "Oh, man! I hate that I'm so consumed by what everybody thinks about me," but I just didn't know how to get out of that pattern of thinking.'

Her first book helped fuel that process, she revealed, stating: 'I think once I got through writing Becoming Free Indeed, I started to see that there was a change in my heart. There was a huge change from that serious craving and desperation.'

She added: 'I will say I'm not perfect. I haven't arrived, I don't have all the answers, but [I'm] just sharing along my journey and how I've seen steps to just be able to think differently. I think it all starts in our thoughts.'

Jinger and sisters Jill, Jana, and Jessa previously have opened up about their parents' - Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar - reasoning for not allowing girls in the family to wear pants.

They wrote in the 2014 book Growing Up Duggar: 'We do not dress modestly because we are ashamed of the body God has given us; quite the contrary.

'We realize that our body is a special gift from God and that He intends for it to be shared only with our future husband.'

Jinger took a different line after leaving the church, and while promoting her memoir in 2023, she compared her famous family to a 'cult'.

She revealed in a wide-ranging interview that she was left 'crippled with anxiety' and 'terrified of the outside world' as a result of the rigid 'cult-like' rules she was forced to follow as a child.

The former TLC star was raised by her parents Jim Bob, 58, and Michelle, 57, who were both devout followers of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, which is denominational Christian organization that acts as an umbrella organization for other ministries and was established by shunned minister Bill Gothard.

Jinger noted that Gothard's teachings were 'based on fear and superstition' and left her questioning what God actually wanted from her - leading her to believe that she would be 'harmed' if she strayed from the rules or made a mistake.

She detailed a moment that she debated wearing something other than a dress, but then remembered that God would be 'so disappointed' in her for disobeying the rules that he would bring 'harm' to her.

The reality TV star explained that modesty became a huge point of her life and she constantly lived in 'fear' because she wasn't allowed to listen to certain types of music or even be friends with select people.

'I thought I had to wear only skirts and dresses to please God. Music with drums, places I went or the wrong friendships could all bring harm,' Jinger told People.

The Duggar family's reality show 19 Kids And Counting was cancelled in 2015 after it was reported that Josh Duggar, 35, had molested multiple underage girls, including four of his siblings, when he was between ages 12 and 15.

Josh, who has seven children with wife Anna, was found guilty in December 2021 of receiving and possessing child pornography and was sentenced in May 2022 to 12 years and seven months in prison.