Audrey Roloff and Jeremy Roloff drove a metaphorical dagger through the hearts of fans.
They have quit Little People, Big World. They don’t want to be reality stars.
However, Audrey and Jeremy do have a new podcast, titled “Behind The Scenes.”
In the audio series’ second-ever episode, Auj and Jer explain the real reasons for which they quit the show.
They have a whole list, folks.
Some of those reasons are not surprising. Others are.
But they have some very good news for fans who are eager to see them (and their precious baby) on camera again.
Take a look:
Auj and Jer have a podcast
The second episode is titled “Why We Left the Show.”
Jeremy spent about half of his life on Little People, Big World
And, as Audrey explains, the show changed over the years as the television industry evolved.
Reality TV became a big thing
“The dynamic of the show changed for you guys [once reality TV boomed],” Audrey says. “Because it was no longer in the budget for people to sit in your living room and film all day long.”
That meant that the show changed, too
It became less of a documemtary and focused more on being entertaining in order to remain on the air
Of course, the Roloffs were already famous
They had appeared on major talk shows such as Good Morning America and even Oprah.
Audrey shares that quitting the show was always the plan
“We almost didn’t film our wedding,” she reveals. “We almost made the decision to stop then, five years ago.”
Jeremy explains that being a reality star is real work
“There’s a lot of mental energy that people underestimate when it comes to filming and being on TV,” Jeremy notes. That’s true — it is really and truly exhausting to be on camera for that much time.
Jeremy says that the show couldn’t quite keep up with reality
“It started out a story about our family,” Jeremy says. And he says that it still is, but …
Their family has changed
“And one thing in reason years that has kind of been difficult for a lot of us in the family is,” Jeremy says. “We’re one family as far as a name goes, but we’re five families now.”
His three siblings are all either married or engaged
“It got kind of difficult navigating all the relationships and stuff,” Jeremy confesses.
There were two other huge factors
Two very personal reasons made them sure that they couldn’t remain on Little People, Big World
First of all, their faith
The Roloff family is very serious about their Christian faith, and Audrey is even more serious about it.
They no longer felt “called” to do the show
A lot of people simply feel called to continue to earn money so that they don’t die, but Auj and Jer have more options and chose to follow their faith on this
But also, everything changed when Ember was born
Jeremy and Audrey explained that they didn’t want Ember Jean to grow up on reality television
That makes sense
Reality stars have zero privacy and it can change their entire lives.
Now they feel free
“Since leaving, it has been one of the most freeing things,” Audrey confesses.
But they’re not really GONE
As Jeremy says, they quit the show but not the Roloff family.
So what does that mean?
Jer says that they’re not going to skip a family event just because a film crew is there.
So we can expect to see them again
In other words, where baby brother Jacob adamently refused to appear on camera following his (very understandable) bitter exit from the show, Auj and Jer are being more chill about it.
In the mean time, they have their podcast
Also their social media.
Ember’s still too little to do a podcast
But you can still see photos of this sweet baby on Instagram and, as they said, she’ll probably be on Little People, Big World, too!