Jillian Michaels takes on farm life, parenting in new show

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By Leanne Italie | Associated Press

NEW YORK — Don’t get Jillian Michaels started on the chickens.

There were supposed to be six but only five showed up when her partner, Heidi Rhoades, cajoled her into collecting them from a loading dock for their farm, where they live with their two kids near Malibu, California.

“I was 20 minutes late to lunch with my lawyer,” Michaels said in a Tuesday interview. “I’ve got every employee on the dock of the post office looking for the sixth chicken that never effing existed in the first place.”

Heidi’s dream farm, and her dream role as the raiser of chickens, is just one slice of life that brings the funny in “Just Jillian,” an eight-part, docu-series on E! that puts a spotlight on the personal side of the health guru as she navigates her rapid-fire existence.

“She raised these damn chickens in the living room for three months, until they had feathers and could go outside,” Michaels said. “I couldn’t even get out of my driveway the other day because the chickens were in the middle of the driveway.”

The 40-year-old Michaels is loving life post “The Bigger Loser” and is hoping you laugh with her, not always just at her, about chickens and loads of other things.

“Opening up my life and my world in such a big way … has been actually kind of a great experience for me thus far. No. 1, I love my life. … On top of that, I am somebody that has been kind of put in a corner and become a cartoon character, so for people to see all sides of me now — the good, the bad, the soft, the hard, the laugh, the sad — is very welcome.”

Michaels has been off the NBC weight-loss competition that boosted her celebrity as a badass trainer for a couple of years and now declares: “I’m done with ‘Biggest Loser.’”

Instead, she loves taking on the “comedy of errors” of her life that occur on “Just Jillian” as “we go about our daily routine.”

By that, she’s talking about the dance of women everywhere “to be the best mom, the best co-worker, the best friend, the best daughter, and all of the absurdity in the minutiae. It’s just a lot of fun.”

Her kids, a 3-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter, appear along with Michaels’ adorable work husband, business partner Giancarlo Chersich, and others in her entourage. Also caught on camera is Michaels’ unique parenting style, including the moment she teaches her daughter the meaning of the word “bull (bleep).”

“I told her, it’s when people run out of Halloween candy on Halloween,” Michaels said.

The show promises guest appearances by the next generation of fitness celebs. And watch for the beads of sweat when Heidi brings up the subject of marriage. The two have been together forever but are not legally hitched.

“I’m unbelievably superstitious,” Michaels said. “I’m like, we have this great relationship, we have this great life, why do you want to invite the devil?”

Associated Press

PHOTO CAPTION: Jillian Michaels poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Jan.19, 2016, in New York to promote her new series, “Just Jillian,” premiering Tuesday on E! | Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP

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