WHO Magazine has an indepth interview with Jillian Michaels in the issue hitting newstands on the 12th of February. In it she explains why she made the decision not to appear in the third season of the US version of the show, yet agreed to be on the second season of the Australian Biggest Loser.

And it wasn’t because of the money!

It’s much more truthful, I’m allowed to be myself here, like nobody tries to create a character out of me, it’s like all the good, all the bad, it’s a very pure picture of who I am, whereas in the States it’s like a caricature, an archetype and I resented it at this point in my career. There’s so much more to me and I’m starting to feel that that archetype is limiting my ability to expand my brand. And so that’s part of it, and the other part of it is that I am training a successor, which is something that I’ve never got to do.

Jillian then goes on to reveal that she didn’t have a hand in choosing her successor, but:

Her name is Michelle. She’s fantastic and I can’t say enough good things about her and in my mind, and I believe this really strongly, that there’s a special place in hell for women that don’t help other women, Madeleine Albright said that, and nothing has never rang more true for me and so I came down here to be like “OK, you listen to me, this is the responsibility that you’re going to have,” but I just love her. Now it’s about explaining to her what she can expect and teaching her. No trainer’s ever worked in a situation where they’re training the same person all day, every day, for seven days a week, for four months of the year.

She goes on to talk some more about the differences between the way the US version portrays things, versus the Australian show, recalling an incident from early in the first series of the Australian show:

… last year in the Australian show, we had this one guy that was extremely big, David, and he couldn’t run, and so one of my boys, Adro, wanted to run with him and I said “No, Adro, go and run with the girls,” and Adro’s telling this story and said “I wanted to run with David but Jillian was like ‘no, you run with the girls'”. In the American show they would’ve cut it and made me look like a monster. Here, Adro was like, “She was like ‘you need your workout, let me run with David and you go run with the girls and get your workout on'” and shows me with David going “Come on buddy, one more step”. That to me, is like, I want people to see the truth of what’s really going on. In the States they would be like “She said, don’t you run with David” and cut to David like struggling, “Go run with the girls”. And everyone would be like “Oh my God, she’s a Nazi.”

There’s a lot more in the interview but those are some of the highlights and the interview will hopefully silence the people who’ve been spreading the rumour that Jillian was asking for too much money. As if the fact that she’ll appear on the Australian show but not the US one wasn’t proof enough – surely no one really believes the Aussie version has more money to throw at her than the US one?!

For more, see “Jillian Michaels sounds off!” on WHO.com