The executive producers of Prime Video’s Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets unearthed a lot of surprising information when looking into the infamous family and their controversial church.
The Duggar family, who previously starred in TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting as well as Counting On, had long been connected to the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) founded by Bill Gothard.
The radical organization — and its overall impact on the family — take center stage in the upcoming docuseries, premiering June 2.
Executive producer Olivia Crist exclusively tells PEOPLE that through their research, they were able to discover ‘how far and wide the IBLP ideology went.
‘It went into our police system. It went into the military. And I think also, just how far and wide, like I said, the ideology spread,’ she explains.
‘You can speak to a family who is part of IBLP Australia or part of IBLP and live in Tennessee and you’re going to see the same exact thing happen in terms of really just this pandemic of abuse that Gothard’s teachings inhabit.’
Similarly, fellow executive producer Julia Willoughby Nason says she believes ‘the far-reaching quality of this ideology was extremely shocking to me, especially how it’s so ingrained in our modern-day culture present day with the political stakes of our human rights at play here’.
‘That’s shocking to me. And what’s shocking to me, too, is listening to the survivor stories,’ she continues.
‘I feel like being a woman in this culture, whether I’m coming from a place of a high control system as IBLP or coming from not that place, just inherently being a woman, I could identify with the themes of abuse and trauma that we’re going through these people’s lifelines.’
But with everything they discovered, Crist says there are still some interesting revelations that didn’t make the cut.
‘I think with a four-part series like this, IBLP’s been around since the ’60s, and just because we wrap production doesn’t mean that the stories just stop there,’ she says.
‘Things continue. And the IBLP culture is incredibly pervasive and there are a lot of other survivors who also need their story to be told.’
Crist adds, ‘So yes, there’s certainly a lot more we could say. And I think, too, where we land, the last episode is a jumping-off point for this larger political conversation, is also something that is of interest of further exploring.’
Additionally, Crist says they ‘would love’ to dive deeper into this matter through a second docuseries.
But with this one, in particular, Nason says the Duggar family ‘is a fascinating, cultural touchpoint’ worth further exploring.
‘It definitely led into the work I do, which is exposing the underbelly of systems of control,’ Nason adds.
‘So it was a very fruitful project in that world to work on.’
