For those who have faithfully followed the TLC show 19 Kids and Still Counting and later Counting On, Derick Dillard is not a stranger. He is famous for being the better half of Jill Duggar, who was first introduced to fans in 2014 when the two first started dating.
More than just being Jill’s husband, he has become known for the many controversies he never tires of courting both in social media and on the show where some think he might as well have survived a drama all by himself.
Derick Dillard Biography (Age)
Derick Dillard was born in the United States on March 9, 1989, the son of Rick Dillard and Cathy Bynum. He grew up in Rogers, AR. with his younger brother Dan Dillard in a Christian family.
ALSO READ: Jessica Graf Bio, Ethnicity And Other Interesting Facts
He earned a degree in Business Administration, Accounting, and Economics from Oklahoma State University, which was also attended by both his parents. When his father was there, he played the school mascot, Pistol Pete. Because of this, Derick Dillard tried to get the role in 2008 but failed. In 2009 he tried again, and this time he succeeded.
After his training, Dillard moved to Nepal where he worked as a volunteer. He also worked in other parts of South Asia before finally returning after two years.
Next, he worked as a tax analyst at Walmart, a job he was to do for a year before finally leaving in 2015. When he claimed that he left his job at Walmart and took another job, many believed that he did not leave on his own initiative but was fired. This speculation was refuted by a Walmart spokesman who revealed that Derick had indeed left on his own.
It was said that he had left to form his own ministry, the Dillard Family Ministry, which did not take long to collapse. He became famous later when he first appeared on the show 19 Kids and Still Counting as Jill Duggar’s lover and later, in 2014, as her husband.
Unfortunately, the show came to an unexpected end, but then, like others on the previous reality show, he appeared in Counting On. Nevertheless, he was ousted from the show in 2017 because of his many controversial views and activities. He was later joined by his wife Jill Duggar Dillard.
Derick Dillard Wife
Since there are millions of love stories, one would hardly find one in which the girl’s father introduces her to her lover. In the case of Derick and Jill, they met for the first time after they were introduced to each other by Jill’s father, Jim Bob.
While in Nepal on a missionary trip, Bob believed that Derick and his daughter might be able to make something work between them, and so he connected them. When they started the relationship anew, they communicated via Skype and text. According to Jill, who later joined them in Nepal, she was in love with the man who later became her husband even before they physically met.
They married in 2014 and are now blessed with two children – Samuel Scott Dillard and Israel David Dillard. In April 2019 there were reports that he was banned from his wife’s family estate, and later the rumor arose that the two were on their way to separate, a rumor that was reinforced by his absence on his son’s birthday.
ALSO READ: William Barr Biography, Education, Family, And Net Worth
Mom and Dad
Derick’s father was a police officer who was called the greatest man of all time by his son. According to him, it was his father who spent his life protecting the public that introduced him to Jesus Christ.
Over a decade ago, in 2008, Dillard lost his father to a heart attack. The man was 50 years old at the time, while his son, who was 19 years old, was a freshman at Oklahoma State University.
The next heartbreak that befell him came in 2014, just weeks after his engagement to Duggar. He received the shocking news that his mother had been diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Fortunately for the family, Cathy Byrum survived the diagnosis and more than five years later she is still cancer-free.
Derick Dillard Net Worth
Although Derick Dillard has become famous through his appearance on some reality TV shows, this does not automatically make him a man of means. He has a net worth estimated at 150,000 dollars.
He once claimed that TLC never paid him a penny for appearing on 19 and Still Counting and Counting On. After the birth of his first child, he claimed that TLC had made some money, but the network had not paid the bills. It was even claimed that he and his wife earned between $25,000 and $40,000. In the deleted tweet, however, he claimed that they were mostly volunteers.
