‘The Biggest Loser’ Winner Michelle Aguilar Defends Jillian Michaels After Netflix Docuseries

The Biggest Loser season 6 winner Michelle Aguilar is sharing her positive experience working with trainer Jillian Michaels.

“When I look back on my time on The Biggest Loser, I can’t help but smile,” Aguilar wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, August 19. “Yes, it was hard work — early mornings, tough workouts and plenty of sweat. But it was also filled with laughter, breakthroughs and moments that changed my life forever.”

In 2008, Aguilar signed up for the NBC reality show when she was 26 and competed alongside her mom, Renee Wilson. The duo were able to repair their relationship and transform their health with help from Michaels, 51.

“She wasn’t just my trainer. She was my motivator, my guide and sometimes the tough love I didn’t know I needed,” Aguilar said. “Jillian has this way of pushing you past what you think is possible and somehow making you believe in yourself at the same time. There were so many moments I thought, ‘I can’t do this.’ But because of her, I did. And I’ll always be grateful for that.”

After losing 110 pounds, Aguilar was named the Biggest Loser of season 6 in December 2008 and won $250,000.

More than 15 years later, Aguilar can still call Michaels a close friend.

“The bond we built back then has only grown stronger,” she said. “Today, I get to call Jillian my friend. And that’s one of the greatest gifts I could have ever imagined. She is, without a doubt, the very best!”

In response to Aguilar’s post, Michaels wrote in the comments section: “Love you to the moon and back.”

The Biggest Loser has been put in the spotlight again after Netflix premiered a new docuseries about the show titled Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser.

The project features interviews with former Biggest Loser contestants, as well as fellow trainer Bob Harper, the show’s medical consultant, Dr. Robert Huizenga, and other people associated with the show.

Fit for TV spotlights some of the show’s most controversial moments, including the time Michaels faced backlash in 2013 when she was accused of cheating by allowing her team to take caffeine pills without a doctor’s permission. Michaels said caffeine was “never banned” from the show and was approved for use.

A message was included during the third part of Fit for TV, which premiered on Friday, August 15, stating, “Jillian Michaels declined to participate in this documentary.”

On Tuesday, Michaels broke her silence on the docuseries via Instagram and denied several allegations made in the project. (Us Weekly has reached out to Netflix for comment.)

In one social media post, Michaels denied the claim that she restricted contestants from eating enough calories.

After seeing the post, season 4 runner-up Julie Hadden also defended her former trainer.

“I was Jillian’s contestant and I can attest to the fact that I was never starved, did not take weird drugs, was never treated unkind and consider having Jillian as one of the best parts of the show,” Hadden wrote in the comments section. “It has been 18 years and she still checks in on me. ❤️”

Michaels replied, “I love you Jules. And I miss you.”