14 DAY TRIAL // Never before has a winner of The Biggest Loser caused such controversy as Rachel Frederickson, who lost almost 60 percent of her starting body weight and looked so frail and unhealthy on the series finale of the previous season many thought she’d just traded one unhealthy lifestyle for another. Frederickson is also the reason Jillian Michaels is no longer on the show.
Then again, we all knew that, because, as the GIF below proves, she didn’t make a secret of how unpleasantly surprised she was to see how skinny Frederickson had gotten. After her announcement that she was done with the show (for the second time), she linked her decision to her belief that Frederickson’s weight loss had been achieved in an unhealthy way.
She’s now telling the Daily Mail in a new interview that she didn’t quit: she was fired.
Producers should have been more responsible when it came to contestants’ health
One of the arguments often tossed around after Frederickson’s win, especially online, was that producers were being irresponsible in endorsing unhealthy weight loss. This became a trending topic when word got out that Frederickson’s BMI actually placed her in the underweight category, so there was no more denying she’d gone from unhealthily overweight to unhealthily thin.
Frederickson herself confirmed that she got a bit “carried away” in the final weeks on the show, working out up to 6 hours a day and counting calories like a maniac. By that time, Michaels had already left.
However, she tells the Mail, it wasn’t before she tried to get producers to see the error of their ways, convinced as she was that they should have exercised stricter control over contestants’ weight loss program.
But she didn’t leave, she was let go – and she believes this is a distinction she must make.
“I asked for changes and they said no, so in my opinion I believe it was their choice. I was willing to stay if certain changes were made and they said no. I went to them and said I'd like to see these changes and they said no so I did not quit they basically said no we're not interested in changing x, y and z, so we will part ways,” Michaels explains.
She doesn’t say which were the things she wanted changed, but seeing how it’s no secret she was not ok with what happened with Frederickson, it isn’t impossible to read between the lines. Still, Michaels insists, she’s not holding any grudge because producers were well within their right to turn her down.
What happened with Frederickson shouldn’t happen again
Michaels tells the British publication that just because she’s ok with how this whole thing played out doesn’t mean that she has changed her stance on the Frederickson scandal.
“I thought she lost too much weight without a doubt,” she says, adding that she felt “ashamed” to be part of the show after Rachel was named winner. “You go to this place where you are like I didn't know, I'm not a producer, I wasn't her trainer and then I had to stop and think regardless, I was benefiting from being on that platform as a professional and I'd been the face of the show.”
