Little People, Big World patriarch Matt Roloff has come under fire after some fans of the show accused him of “minimizing” his youngest son Jacob’s claims that a producer on the show molested him.
Matt spoke to the podcast, First Class Fatherhood, and one of the topics of discussion was his son Jacob’s accusations, which were made last year.
In December 2020, Jacob took to his Instagram account to release a statement accusing Chris Cardamone, an executive field producer for the show, of grooming and molesting him.
At the time, Jacob said he didn’t feel comfortable sharing the details of the allegations, but that he hoped Cardamone was “never allowed around children again.”
Matt recently sat down with Alec Lace, host of the First Class Fatherhood podcast, to talk about a variety of topics, including Jacob’s allegations of abuse.
“We as a family found out just two or three days before that Jacob sent out a text to the family, and it was hard. A heartbreaking revelation. It caught us all by surprise, we had no idea and he explained that this had happened back in 2015, it was a single incident, it didn’t happen on the farm, it happened off the farm,” Matt said of Jacob’s claims.
Fans gave their opinions about Matt’s reactions to Jacob’s claims after reality TV blogger page Without a Crystal Ball shared a clip of the podcast on Instagram.
The caption accused Matt of seeming to “minimize and gloss over” Jacob’s claims. Many fans of the show posted comments saying they also shared the same feelings.
“Matt shouldn’t be lessening Jacobs experience or trying to rationalise it,” one added.
Alec Lace, who interviewed Matt for his podcast, said that clip was ‘overly edited’
Alex Lace, who carried out the interview with Matt, also commented, describing the clip shared by Without a Crystal Ball as “overly edited”. In one of two comments, he added: “Matt Roloff had much more to say about this including – “Obviously when you hear about this as a father, you’re not only devastated, but you are devastated that you didn’t help protect your child.”
However, Without A Crystal Ball defended their stance, saying, “I spliced out long pauses.You can watch the whole thing / but he still minimized it.”
Matt continues to stay busy with projects on the family farm, and recently revealed his plans to begin building his dream home.
In the latest clip for this season of LPBW, Matt was seen suggesting that his ex, Amy, and her fiance, Chris, get married on the farm.
Fans of the show can tune in tonight to catch the Season 22 premiere episode and catch up on everything else Roloff-related.
Little People, Big World airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on TLC and streams on Discovery Plus.