The Biggest Loser fitness trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels were thick as thieves on the reality show, but as is revealed in Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, off screen it was a different story altogether – and now a lawsuit may be brewing.
The three-part Netflix documentary features interviews with producers, staff members, and former contestants of the ‘00s competition show, which saw groups of individuals battling it out to win a cash prize – by losing the highest relative percentage of body weight.
Running for 17 seasons and spawning a billion-dollar franchise, The Biggest Loser was undeniably a TV hit. Yet Fit for TV pulls back the curtain, exposing how the series belittled contestants, fueled damaging stereotypes, and encouraged dangerous weight loss methods.
As for Harper and Michaels, they spent more than 15 years fronting rival teams, often laughing (or screaming) at contestants side by side. But according to the docuseries, their on-screen camaraderie may have all been an act.
What happened between Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels?
Although Michaels declined the opportunity to participate in the Netflix documentary, Harper does appear. According to his accounts, they were only close on the show – in reality, they weren’t really friends.
The turning point for Harper arrived in February 2017, when he suffered a significant heart attack while working out at his local gym. “It was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever gone through,” he says.
“I was dead on the gym floor for nine minutes. It was only because there was a doctor that was in this gym – he had to pound and pound on my chest to try to get some sort of electric current going through my heart again for the AED to work.”
Fit For TV cuts to a clip of Harper on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen a couple of months after the incident. Cohen asks if he heard from all his Biggest Loser co-stars, to which he replies, “I heard from almost everyone.”
Even though Cohen seems to already know who didn’t reach out, Harper clarifies, “People were always like, ‘You and Jillian have been so close.’ I was like, ‘Well, we were close on television.’
“After I had my heart attack, she’s the one person I never heard from. So, I mean, that to me spoke volumes.”
He repeated this statement in a recent interview with the Guardian, saying, “We weren’t besties, but we were partners on a television show for a very long time… I would not expect Jillian Michaels to do anything other than what she wants to do.”
Another interview with ET shows both Harper and Dr. Robert Huizenga, the physician tasked with keeping contestants healthy during the course of the competition.
Huizenga also appears in the new documentary, claiming that he was often at odds with the trainers – particularly when it came to Michaels, who was found to have been giving caffeine pills to her teams.
“I didn’t have a relationship with Jillian, but I had a good relationship with Bob. He was willing to discuss things out and to compromise and, you know, was looking for some help, wasn’t thinking that he knew everything,” he explains.
Huizenga says he didn’t speak with Michaels “for any of the last 16 seasons,” to which Harper responds, “I didn’t know that they didn’t speak all that time. That’s news to me.”
Harper goes on to say, “I haven’t talked to her in many, many years. I mean, it’s been more than 10 years I guess.” When asked if he has a message for her if she sees the interview, he replies, “Have fun watching it,” referring to the Netflix docu-series.
Has Jillian Michaels responded?
On August 19, Michaels – who’s in the middle of a new controversy over her comments on slavery and US history – clapped back at the criticism she’s received for giving her contestants caffeine pills.
She’s also shared the last ever message she reportedly sent to Harper and told TMZ that she’s preparing to sue Netflix, Harper, and Huizenga.
For context, in Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser revisits the controversy, with experts describing how caffeine supplements can suppress appetite and cause stress on the cardiovascular system.
Harper claims he had no idea that this was going on at the time, stating, “Jillian was winning all the time and I was just like, ‘You know what? I’m here to just like help them as much as I possibly can.’”
When Michaels was confronted about it on The Biggest Loser, she stood by her opinion, but she was widely criticized for this practice.
Now, she’s claiming that everyone involved knew what was happening. Taking to Instagram, she shared a screenshot of an email thread in which she seemingly discussed caffeine supplements, with Harper and others looped in.
Alongside the screenshots, she wrote, “Here is an email chain with Bob Harper – The Biggest Loser’s producers – Dr. Huizenga’s guy, Sandy Krum, who stayed on set with us and distributed the fat burners about which ‘fat burners’ / caffeine pills to purchase the contestants.
“This is one email of many that shows: Dr. Huizenga did approve caffeine pills on many seasons of Biggest Loser. Bob Harper not only knew about the caffeine pills, the ‘stackers fat burner’ were actually his suggestion.
“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.”
She went on to say, “And, the last image is my second-to-last text ever to Bob Harper. Take from it what you will.”
The text, sent in 2014, reads, “I really think it’s sh*tty of you to not even respond to my texts. It’s this kind of thing that always makes me so disappointed by our relationship.”
It’s another twist in the Harper and Michaels feud. Whether or not Harper will respond is yet to be seen, but according to Michaels, she’s now lawyering up, telling TMZ that she’s meeting with attorney Bryan Freedman to plot her next move.
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