Jillian Michaels has responded to Netflix’s recently released “Biggest Loser” bombshell documentary.
In the three-part series that Michaels did not participate in, the fitness guru was painted to be harsh on the contestants, giving out caffeine pills to help stimulate rapid weight loss and push contestants to their breaking points.
During an interview with Fox News Digital, Michaels addressed whether she is planning to take legal action against Netflix, her former co-trainer, Bob Harper, or the show’s doctor, Dr. Robert Huizenga after she deemed the documentary to be “an egregious lie.”
Michaels was the coach of the Red Team on “Biggest Loser” on-and-off for 10 years starting in 2004. She officially left the show in 2014. “Biggest Loser” was on-air for 18 seasons and concluded in 2020.
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“To be totally honest with you, at the moment I’m choosing my battles because there are a lot to fight. I will absolutely take on one of these. The question is, you can’t fight 10 Goliaths at the same time. So, I have to determine what I want my legacy to be and that is going to be a result of which fight I pick,” she said.
Michaels also explained that she is in talks with the executive producers of the “Biggest Loser” to do their own type of documentary where she will be able to share her side of the story.
“I might do that. There is talk of that. I might take that path instead, and I think I don’t know that I am necessarily going to need to sue because it’s very timely. It’s very expensive,” Michaels said.
Michaels explained that the original executive producers of “Biggest Loser” and the production company are “very upset” by Netflix’s documentary because it’s “literally just lie upon lie.”
Michaels mentioned a part of the documentary where a contestant from season one claimed she told him after he won the show that he “made her a millionaire.”
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“I was wearing a mic, so like, there’s this, apparently there’s a contestant from season one, which is 21 years ago, who magically remembers this moment where I jump into his arms after he supposedly pisses blood in his medical, which I have nothing to do with, by the way. That was the doctor. Like, yay. Interesting. So he pissed blood in the medical, but this wonderful benevolent doctor didn’t disqualify him. Somehow, nobody heard about this.”
“So he’s saying this happened, and then I jumped into his arms and said, you’re gonna make me a millionaire. I’m wearing a microphone. He’s wearing a microphone. You can actually watch the moment and the hug is like a second. There’s no possible way that exchange could have [happened]. And then both of the executive producers are like, ‘She was mic’d. We would have heard it, and there will be a record of it if such a thing was said.’ So I think it’s interesting,” Michaels said.
Dr. Huizenga shared a comment with Fox News Digital regarding the contestant who was urinating blood. “This is a not uncommon side effect of vigorous exercise, so it would not be a cogent reason to disqualify a contestant,” he said.
“Season one of Biggest Loser had a policy against dehydration. Contestants who were dehydrated and in line for monetary end of show prizes were penalized (i.e. pounds were added on to their final weight in proportion to the amount of dehydration observed),” Huizenga continued.
When asked if she would be interested in a reboot of “Biggest Loser,” Michaels quickly shut it down and explained she has bigger interests in her career now.
“I’m 51 years old, you know, I’m trying to take on bigger things. I’m trying to help facilitate a change with big food and big pharma and big insurance … and these are the 800-pound gorillas I want to jump in that ring with,” Michaels said.
Michaels acknowledges that there were some “mistakes made” while the show was on-air, but a lot of those decisions were not up to her. She mentioned some of the challenges she didn’t agree with and the food “temptations” were not something she was fond of.
“There were a lot of mistakes made, very few of which I had any control or say over. Now, here’s where the blame lies at my feet. ‘Well, you participated, and you benefited, and you profited’ and I did. And I felt very strongly that I was able to move the needle in the direction I wanted for many seasons. And, I thought like, ‘Well, the good outweighs the bad by a long shot,’” Michaels said.
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WATCH: Jillian Michaels on if she plans to take legal action after bombshell ‘Biggest Loser’ documentary
In the documentary, Netflix highlighted a contestant named Rachel Fredrickson. She was known on the show for losing a large amount of weight, and it was suggested that Michaels was her trainer and was giving her caffeine pills during her time on the show.
“In the documentary, they try to make it look like she was my contestant and I gave her caffeine pills. I was never actually fortunate enough to have trained Rachel Fredrickson one time, let alone give her a caffeine pill. And by the way, can you imagine if caffeine was that powerful of a weight-loss tool? I don’t think you’d be seeing Ozempic anywhere.”
“Regardless, it is a great performance enhancer with fitness. I’ve advocated for it for many years. It’s far better than endless cups of coffee, but nevertheless, I didn’t train Rachel Fredrickson, let alone give her caffeine pills,” Michaels said.
Michaels explained that after seeing Fredrickson at the finale, she had an issue with the amount of weight that she lost and took up the issue with the show’s doctor and producers.
“The response that I got, I actually posted on my Instagram, where the chairman of the network at the time, who has subsequently been fired, arguably for things like this, basically told me, you know, ‘You better get in line, otherwise we’re gonna sue you.’ Then he says, ‘We’ll spend the weekend drafting letters to your lawyer, and we’ll be dealing with you as a past tense problem.'”
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“And instead of getting in line and continuing to profit off of the show, I resigned immediately and that’s where I can tell you definitively that the bad outweighed the good,” Michaels said.
Looking back, Michaels revealed whether she regrets not participating in the Netflix documentary.
“Zero regrets about not doing it because I would have simply lent credibility to something that is an egregious lie,” she said.
Netflix and Harper did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
