Zach and Tori Roloff just released a whole podcast episode, talking about something we’ve all been wondering about. They finally confirmed what everyone has probably suspected at this point.
Apparently, leaving the show wasn’t only their decision. TLC also wasn’t interested in filming with them anymore.
But ultimately, it doesn’t seem like not being asked back had a big impact on Tori and Zach. The two of them explained that they had decided to end their time on the show either way.
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They took this opportunity to talk through all the reasons why they decided to leave Little People Big World behind. Tori explained that the show had pretty much run its course. It had gotten to the point where filming actually got really difficult for them toward the end.
But one of the main reasons why they didn’t want to do the show anymore was actually that it wasn’t really representative of their lives anymore. They explained that there simply isn’t enough drama in their lives to make a whole reality show.
Over the last couple of years, they were actually really unhappy with the narratives that happened on the show. Tori actually said that sometimes, this was extra hard for her, being a mom. A lot of the time, the narrative change had to do with her kids.
The producers of the show just needed to find more drama somewhere. And Tori and Zach explained that it was never about the big things.
The producers didn’t outright make up lies about their lives and tell them to people. But sometimes, they would make a situation seem like it was dramatic when it really wasn’t.
The Show Was Often Unfair to Jackson
To be completely honest, that’s just how reality TV sometimes is. On the one hand, it’s about the real lives of people. But on the other hand, it also has to be entertaining TV.
Zach actually went into this on the podcast and said that in his opinion, most people are fully aware that this is how things work. For Tori, some of these situations have made her pretty mad over the years.
She recalled that there was this one time when they went to this fancy restaurant for the show. At the time, she and Zach’s oldest child, Jackson, was still just a baby. Tori said that they still had him in a baby carrier at the restaurant, that’s how young he was.
Obviously, things like restaurant dinners can be pretty difficult for kids to sit through. A lot of the time, there’s crying and screaming.
There’s nothing actually wrong with that, it’s just what kids do sometimes. It’s still an uncomfortable situation, though. That’s apparently what the producers decided to put in the show.
The thing is, that night, it really seemed like this kind of situation was inevitable. Tori explained that she and Zach forgot Jackson’s binky at home. They brought him to this restaurant to sit there for hours without even his little toy to focus on.
Tori said they were honestly expecting the worst. But Jackson actually surprised them with how calm he was that night.
Tori actually said that that’s just how Jackson was as a kid. According to her, he was just a really good, sweet kid. But then she watched the show again and realized that the producers made the situation at the restaurant look completely different.
Tori and Zach Wanted to Give Their Kids Privacy
She actually found this really offensive. She didn’t think it was fair to Jackson that people would think he cried through the dinner when, in reality, he was such a good baby.
That wasn’t the only thing about the show that wasn’t really fair to Jackson. That’s another thing Zach and Tori brought up as one of the reasons why they ultimately decided to step back from the show. It wasn’t just about Jackson, either.
At some point, they just started thinking about whether being on reality TV was really what their kids would want.
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As Jackson got older and started understanding how the whole TV thing worked, he actually started putting up boundaries of his own. He started asking that some parts of his life be left private and not filmed for the show.
Zach and Tori made sure that Jackson always got the privacy he asked for. But it got them thinking about all the times when he was too young to ask that something not be filmed. The same really goes for their two younger kids.
That’s really always the problem with filming young kids for reality TV. There’s no way to ask them if they’re okay with being on it because they’re just too young to understand.
They might get older and realize that they would have rather never been on the show. But obviously, they can’t go back and make that decision for themselves. By the time they start to understand, it’s way too late for that.
Zach Also Grew Up on TV
This is actually something that Zach himself even experienced as a kid because he also grew up on the show. However, his experience is not exactly the same as his kids’ because the show wasn’t a thing yet when he was a baby.
Little People Big World only started when Zach was already 15 and starting high school. But he still said there were definitely things he regrets filming for the show when he was younger. Although he didn’t specify which scenes and episodes those were.
But the thing about all of this is, even he still has regrets about filming some things. And he was a teenager already, not a little kid. This means that he can imagine exactly how his kids might feel in a few years when they look back on the show.
He said that given the choice, he would choose to do the show all over again. But it’s obvious that both he and Tori were pretty worried about whether their kids would feel the same one day. It was definitely one of the biggest reasons why they decided to quit the show.
The Show Heavily Affected Zach and Tori’s Relationships
But another one of the reasons is actually something you see on reality TV all the time, and it doesn’t really get talked about that much. It’s the fact that reality TV seems to have a really bad influence on relationships.
You see it all the time – people on reality TV just having their relationships fall apart. But the thing is, it’s always hard to say what the cause of that is.
Because you never know if reality TV is the reason that the relationship fell apart. It might be that it was going to fail anyway, even if there was no show. Tori actually noted this on the podcast, too.
As someone who has been on reality TV, she and Zach get a unique view into this. They have personal experience with being on the show and not being on the show.
Tori actually said that since they quit the show, their relationships with some of the other Roloffs have already improved. So it really seems like the show was at fault for ruining things between them.
Tori explained a theory about why she thinks reality TV is so bad for relationships. The problem is that being on a show means that inevitably, people are going to hear you say things that weren’t meant for their ears.
She explained that everyone always says stuff about others that is just not for them to hear. We all do that, and there’s nothing really wrong with it.
But when that gets filmed for TV and broadcast to the world, chances are that person is going to hear what you said about them. At some point, it has to get really difficult to not take those things personally.
The Show May End Because Zach and Tori Left
And once you start taking things personally, that’s the relationship done. It is just sad, honestly, that reality TV comes with these kinds of sacrifices. But at least it sounds like Zach and Tori might be able to rebuild some of those relationships they almost lost.
The real question about all of this is what will happen with the show, now that Zach and Tori have quit. This is something that the two of them didn’t talk about on the podcast. But I think it’s pretty obvious what the only possible outcome of all of this is.
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The thing is, almost everyone else had already quit the show before them. With the two of them gone, too, it would really be just Amy and Matt left to fill the show with content. The two of them have been divorced for a while now so there’s not much going on between them.
No matter how you look at it, it seems like the show might be done after season 25. Although, we’ll still have to wait and see.
