"For Real: The Story of Reality TV" Premieres Mar. 25 on E!

Whitney Way Thore absolutely could have taken a big fat break from reality TV. 

When her mom Barbara "Babs" Thore died last December, "We actually were not in production," Whitney revealed in an exclusive interview with E! News, referencing her long-running TLC series My Big Fat Fabulous Life. "My executive producer reached out and very sensitively asked, you know, would you like us to film?"

Posing the question to her father Glenn Thore, "I really wasn't sure how he was going to feel and he immediately said yes," Whitney recalled. "The way he explains it is that my mother was loved v…