Why Jacob Roloff Left "Little People Big World"

From Good Housekeeping

• Jacob Roloff, the youngest child of Amy and Matt Roloff, is no longer appearing on Little People, Big World.

• He has spoken out against the show, claiming it manufactures scenes for television "drama."

• He now posts YouTube videos of his travels across the country.

The TLC reality show Little People, Big World just premiered its new season on Tuesday night, and fans couldn't help but wonder why Jacob, the youngest child of Matt and Amy Roloff, doesn't appear on the show anymore.

Molly, Amy and Matt's only daughter, also doesn't appear on the show, but lives far away from the farm. Jacob on the other hand, lives quite close to his beloved family.

The 21-year-old hasn’t been on the show for a few years now. On Instagram back in 2016, he slammed the show for what he said was making up scenes for the sake of drama. He wrote that his family is nothing like what is shown on television.

“Producers have to try to get us to follow the talking points,” he wrote. “For me, noticing how the agenda of the crew doesn’t work well with the health and happiness of our family is what made me decide quite a while ago that I could not be a part of it as soon as I was able.”

A year earlier, he alluded on Twitter to missing out on the money he made from the show when he was a minor, but he didn’t elaborate.

Back in June, Jacob released a book, Verbing. According to the book’s description on Amazon, it’s formatted into three short essays “on the subject of my growth -spiritually, intellectually, in the public eye.” In the book, Jacob writes that filming the show caused him a lot of angst, especially when dealing with his family. “This led to arguments and miscommunications with family, especially my parents, culminating in their decision to experiment having me see a therapist,” he wrote, according to In Touch. He’s now working on his second book.

Over the past year, Jacob and his now-fiancée, Isabel Rock, have been posting videos on their YouTube channel, Rock & Roloff, detailing their road trips across the country. And in those videos, he’s not shy about explaining why he left the show.

"I saw a comment on something and somebody was asking why I don't just do the show since I'm filming myself right now," Jacob said in one video, according to In Touch. "There's two ways to do the filming thing - one way is through the show, maybe, and the other way is through myself and vlogs. It's just more free doing it myself, I can do anything, I can say anything, I can talk about anything - I can show whatever I want." Isabel added that this way, the things he says can’t be misconstrued.

Jacob said that he doesn’t appreciate it when fans tell him they’re “sorry” he’s not on the show, because that’s not how he feels; he’s not resentful, he’s just moved on with his life. “If somebody were to say ‘Oh, you’re Jacob from the show!' I don’t want that. I would rather have, ‘You’re Jacob from my own thing,’” he said. “But even more than that, I would rather have just nothing, just, ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ People don’t recognize me, it’s great. I get to explain where I come from in my own words rather than them seeing it and then coming to me with their own preconceptions. I can tell them what’s going on, and that’s really great.”

It’s clear that Jacob still has a good relationship with his family despite bowing out of the show. Recently, he posted photos of himself hanging out with his nephew, Jackson, the baby son of his brother, Zach, and his wife, Tori.

In January, Jacob announced he was engaged to Isabel. They got engaged on a frozen pond in Iceland over the holidays. Amy gushed over the good news, writing on Instagram, “I couldn’t be a happier mom!”