Jillian Michaels Vs. Bob Harper: Who Was The Biggest Loser's Most Controversial Trainer?

Like many older reality TV shows, "The Biggest Loser" is pretty cringy to look back on, but also uncomfortably controversial, thanks in no small part to its biggest trainers, Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper. The two fitness fiends brought their Hollywood style of exercise and nutrition to the weight-loss competition series, which premiered in 2004, to a very large audience. The show featured a group of contestants who were competing to lose as much weight as possible, going to extreme and often humiliating lengths to do so. Though popular with reality TV audiences at the time, the show became increasingly infamous as more information about the production was released. Not only was "The Biggest Loser" very fake, but an NIH report revealed how unhealthy and counterproductive it was for actual weight loss, and former contestants revealed the abusive, untold truth of the show.

Throughout it all, Michaels and Harper have stoked the flames of controversy on the show as its most popular trainers. The editors tended to paint them in a good cop, bad cop style, with Harper bringing hugs and Michaels bringing malice, but in reality, they could both be absolutely brutal, as evidenced by the Netflix docuseries "Fit for TV: The Biggest Loser." Optics proved to be the key difference between the two trainers, and perhaps the reason why one is more notorious than the other. Looking across the 17 seasons of its original run, though, may reveal who is truly the most controversial trainer.

Right off the bat, it might seem utterly obvious who was the most controversial trainer of "The Biggest Loser." That's because Jillian Michaels has created a loud, angry persona to complement her career as the kind of fitness expert whose screams are supposed to be motivational, like "tough love." Unfortunately, instead of motivating contestants on the show and audiences at home, Michaels often upset and disturbed them by taking things simply too far. In fact, she was often criticized as sadistic as she said in one episode, "It's fun watching other people suffer like that."

Yet, that's not the worst of it. During an episode, she told a contestant that she doesn't "care about makeovers, I don't care about your family, I don't care about anything. All I care about is that your ass gets smaller" (via Glamour). Following that trend, she's expressed she doesn't care "if one of your legs fall off or if one of your lungs explode," in one episode, nor did she care "if people die on this floor. You better die looking good," she said in another episode, and that's just a slight sampling from over the years. 

Along with the aggressive screaming, Jillian Michaels regularly invaded the personal space of contestants on "The Biggest Loser." She would get within inches of someone's face, stand between their legs, sit or crouch on their treadmills, and so on.

While most people look like cherubic angels compared to Jillian Michaels, Bob Harper has certainly had his moments of cruelty and abuse on "The Biggest Loser." Typically, less intense than Michaels, Harper has nonetheless lost his cool, most explosively at contestant Joelle Gwynn in Season 7. "Dig, Joelle!" Harper yelled. What the f***, Joelle? Every single time at 20 seconds, every f***ing time, what is it? Tell me what it is!" Joelle timidly replied, "I'm giving you my best."

"No, you're not!" Harper screamed back at the confused contestant. "You stop at 20 seconds every f***ing time. What is it? Because I've got six other people here that want to be here that keep pushing outside of the f***ing box. What is it? ... Everyone goes for 30 seconds. You don't come off for 30 seconds, okay? That's all I'm asking, just do that. God!" Eventually, exhausted and upset, Gwynn yelled, "I'm not trying to quit!" Harper exploded back at her, "Well then do it, Joelle! Stop saying all these words. Quit talking! I'm sick of just words, words, words, talk, talk, talk! Shut the f*** up, just do it! Just stop talking and do it!" Gwynn had the final word, appearing on the docuseries "Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser." She called Harper a "little country bumpkin of a man" (via Parade), adding, "I've never seen someone get abused like that. It was very, very, very, very embarrassing."

Jillian Michaels seems addicted to drama, having left "The Biggest Loser" three times. In 2006, fans of the show were surprised when an NBC spokesperson confirmed that Jillian Michaels would not return for Season 3. "Jillian Michaels has decided to leave the show to pursue other opportunities," they stated. Michaels' purported reason was to pursue other opportunities, but considering she announced her return the very next year, perhaps there weren't as many opportunities as she may have thought.

Michaels' contract was set to end with Season 11 in 2011, and she was fine with that at the time. She had filmed the series "Losing It with Jillian Michaels" in 2010, and she credits her experiences with families on that show for wanting a family of her own. "I want to take a year off TV and focus on becoming a mommy and doing more charity work. Shooting 'Losing It' also had a big impact on me. Living with kids, I saw firsthand what I was missing," Michaels said (via TV Guide).

"The Biggest Loser" was Michaels' cash cow, though, and she returned to the show in 2012. That would again be short-lived, with Season 15 being her last. "Unfortunately, over the years we've had many differences in opinion on how I thought things should be," Michaels told the Daily Mail. "I went to them and said I'd like to see these changes and they said no." On the other hand, Bob Harper appeared in every season of the show without departing like a diva.

Season 15 revealed an even darker side of "The Biggest Loser." For many viewers, this was (finally) when the show had gone too far, letting its winner lose so much weight (leaving her at 105 pounds) that she "horrified" the trainers. This was also the season of Jillian Michaels' caffeine pill scandal, something which opened up a whole can and a half of worms. During the weigh-in at the end of the fifth week, host Alison Sweeney announced (per Today), "Last week, Jillian broke the rules and gave caffeine supplements to each member of her team without doctor's permission."

Michaels didn't deny the accusations, instead claiming that caffeine supplements were healthier than drinking a lot of coffee. Michaels, of course, wouldn't return for the last two seasons, with the caffeine scandal serving as one of the final straws. In the Netflix documentary series "Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser," Soon after the show was released, Michaels announced that she intended to sue not only Netflix but also Bob Harper, taking to Instagram in order to contest many of the show's claims. "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," wrote Michaels. "Wild how some folks still lie like it's 1985 before texts and email were a thing."

There were later, as-yet-unsubstantiated allegations that trainers gave contestants drugs much stronger than caffeine, leading to an internal investigation at NBC. Jillian Michaels wasn't the only one to blame Bob Harper. "Bob Harper tells people to throw up: 'Good,' he says. 'You'll lose more calories,'" recounted Suzanne Mendonca in an infamous 2016 New York Post exposé (via The Wrap). "People would take amphetamines, water pills, diuretics, and throw up in the bathroom." In that same exposé, aforementioned contestant Joelle Gwynn, claimed Harper's assistant pushed drugs on her team; she made the notorious accusation, "People chastise Bill Cosby for allegedly offering meds to women, but it's acceptable to do to fat people to make them lose weight. I feel like we got raped, too."

"The Biggest Loser" medical contributor Dr. Robert Huizenga sued the Post and Gwynn for defamation. "I felt jittery and hyper," Gwynn had alleged to the Post. "The next day, Dr. H gave us some lame explanation of why they got added to our regimen and that it was up to us to take them." Harper did not sue, though he denied the claims, saying (per The Cut), "These allegations are absolutely false and are in direct conflict with my lifelong devotion to health and fitness." It should be noted that Mendonca was a police officer, which gives her more legitimacy to some, and that the courts dismissed Gwynn from Dr. Huizenga's lawsuit, ruling that he couldn't prove Gwynn made the statements in malice.

Perhaps the shadiest truths about Jillian Michaels are the violent ones. It's one thing to scream something like, "Unless you faint, puke or die, keep walking!" It's another thing to shout actual threats of physical violence. "If you don't run I will pull Alex on the floor and I will break every bone in his body," she said in one episode. In another, she made herself crystal clear: "I'm going to kill you. You're going to cry blood." In another, when a contestant's boxing stance was unsatisfactory for her, Michaels instructed someone to slap the contestant whenever she broke form. Then there are the disturbing claims from Michaels' ex, Jackie Warner, "We'd get thrown out of nice restaurants because she was screaming loud, cursing, and I couldn't take it," Warner alleged on the "Hot Takes & Deep Dives" podcast. "I just was not the same. I mean, she used to spit on people."

Finally, in one episode, Michaels' penchant for sadism physically hurt her whole team when she forced them to cycle on stationary bikes that had the seats removed. This infuriated Jennifer Sage of the Indoor Cycling Association, who wrote in an open letter to Michaels, "What you did with your participants on 'The Biggest Loser' last night was horrendous and very sad ... I know you think you must keep up your 'image' as being a hard ass, kick butt, no-holds-barred personal trainer, but this time you went too far."

When you're putting unhealthy people through an extremely intense crash diet, which could be very dangerous, you should have the appropriate credentials. While Jillian Michaels has more credentials today, at the time, she was only certified in NESTA and AFAA. That didn't stop her from releasing a workout DVD devoted to kettlebells, something which provoked fitness columnist James Fell to write an ultimately viral 2010 Los Angeles Times piece on Michaels in which he questioned her authority as a trainer. He interviewed Dr. Mark Cheng, chief instructor at Kettlebells Los Angeles, who said, "Her technique is appalling." Fells also quoted Denver-based instructor Josh Hillis' blog, writing, "It's just wrong ... in every way. All of it. Every single thing she does is wrong."

Dean Somerset, a trainer with advanced credentials (CSCS, CEP, MES), has also criticized Michaels on her website, writing, "There's a big gap between 'certified' and 'qualified' fitness professionals." Personal trainer Jenny Skoog wrote of Michaels, "Her reputation in the industry is terrible. Trainers know she represents everything wrong with our field." Perhaps the harshest critique of Michaels' credentials came from Harley Pasternak, who holds a master's degree in exercise science. He was actually the first person to be hired as a trainer for "The Biggest Loser," but pulled out before filming. Explaining his reasons to The Guardian, Pasternak stated (referring to Michaels), "The last straw was when they cast an actress opposite me. I was going up against a TV trainer, not a real one."

Bob Harper doesn't fare much better than Jillian Michaels in the credentials department; in fact, his only known certifications are from the American Fitness Training of Athletics Association and the Aerobic and Fitness Association of America. "Both Jillian and Bob wouldn't be hired at the health club where my studio is located; their certifications aren't up to the club's standards," wrote Harvard-educated Pilates instructor Lisa Johnson.

In the "Fit for TV" docuseries, Harper actually reveals (via The Independent), "I never worked with obese people," adding, "I worked with very fit people who were trying to be a size zero or have a six-pack. It was a huge wake-up call for me." In the Netflix documentary, Harper was coldly ruthless about his ultimate goal on the show — "What's more important for weight loss? We all know it's diet. But that becomes boring television. You know what's not boring television? To see us in a gym, yelling, screaming, that's 'good TV.'"

Perhaps the biggest blow to Harper's career as a trainer (and life) came just after the original run of "The Biggest Loser." While exercising in February 2017, Harper suffered what's often called a widowmaker heart attack at the age of 51. "That day really f***ed me up," he told People. "And I'll tell you, since my heart attack, I completely changed the way I work out. And for years all I've done is yoga." A widowmaker surely isn't the best advertisement for a trainer.

It's not a huge surprise that Jillian Michaels contemplated suing Bob Harper and Netflix after "Fit for TV" aired; after all, she's very familiar with lawsuits, to the extent that one headline read, "Suing Jillian Michaels: America's New Favorite Pastime." She threatened to sue the aforementioned James Fell for his Los Angeles Times article, and she successfully sued Lionsgate and YouTube in 2017, with an arbitrator ruling that she was owed nearly $6 million in royalties. Michaels even sued her own lawyers for malpractice, claiming they botched an earlier lawsuit.

Typically, though, the lawsuits are filed the other way around for Michaels, which is appropriate for her controversial brand. Michaels has been sued many times over diet supplements that she's been paid to put her name on. Jillian Michaels' Maximum Strength Calorie Control, Jillian Michaels' Maximum Strength Fat Burner, Jillian Michaels' Triple Process Total Body Detox & Cleanse, and others have all led to lawsuits and have been discontinued. One of them was alleged to be deadly, another came with the false advertisement, "Two Capsules Before Main Meals and You Lose Weight ... That's It!" There were quiet settlements and mediations, with the website Jillian Weight Loss being shut down. Michaels was also sued for trademark infringement over her DVD series, "Jillian Michaels' Body Revolution." That suit came from the owner of the previously established Body Revolution Personal Training.

Jillian Michaels seems to court controversy even outside the fitness realm. Michaels has moved from shouting indecencies on a reality TV show to shouting insults on "news" shows. The trainer has rebranded herself as a MAGA loyalist and fiery far-right voice. She is one of four hosts on "Her Take," a talk show that rips off "The View" but with a conservative slant, which is in the pro-MAGA Valuetainment network. Michaels also hosts a podcast titled "Keeping It Real, "with episode titles such as "Grant Cardone's FAIL PROOF blueprint to EXPLOSIVE WEALTH" (the formatting is hers).

Michaels has also appeared as a guest on various cable news channels and their political programs, occasionally having to be silenced. She appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News and stated, "The left has gone completely bananas." She appeared on Abby Philip's show on CNN and said white people weren't responsible for slavery. "You cannot tie imperialism and racism and slavery to just one race," Michaels ranted on the show (per People). "Do you realize that only less than 2% of White Americans owned slaves? You realize that slavery is thousands of years old?" She continued after some pushback, "Every single thing is like, 'Oh, no, no, no, this is all because white people are bad and that's just not the truth.' Is it fair to have biological men competing against biological women in sports? No."

It's probably obvious by now — between Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper, it seems as if the most controversial trainer from "The Biggest Loser" must be Michaels. We haven't even gotten into her often arbitrary and typically mean attacks on Andy Cohen, Lizzo, CrossFit, the keto diet, Al Roker, and yes, Bob Harper. Sure, it's part of Michaels' self-made "brand" to be contentious and tough, but she seems to have let the persona overtake her humanity, unable to see the damage she has caused. She has become broadly disliked in the fitness community, widely ridiculed in the political arena, and actively avoided in Hollywood. So absent is her self-awareness that Michaels' immediate response to these accusations would likely be, "It's not me, it's them." She is a muscular manifestation of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

By no means should Bob Harper be let off the hook, though. "I do not care for Bob Harper," as Joelle Gwynn said in the "Fit for TV" docuseries. "F*** you, Bob Harper." Let's not forget the manipulative tactics of reality television — Harper and Michaels are often pigeonholed into the good cop and bad cop dynamic, which was why it shocked so many people when Harper absolutely lost it at Gwynn. Ultimately, though, the difference between them may be illusory. While one may be more despised than another, they are equally responsible for the pain and suffering of multiple contestants and are both culpable for profiting off a toxic culture of shame and dysmorphia.