Amy Duggar has been a vocal critic of many goings on in the Duggar family, especially those related to Josh. 36-year-old Amy has served as a counterbalance to the rest of the very particular family, yet she found out from outside sources – instead of her family – about the abuses Josh conducted.
The televised story of the Duggar family has evolved over the years, most recently under the name 19 Kids and Counting. TLC suspended the series in 2015 after Josh, eldest Duggar son, apologized for “acted inexcusably” by molesting five girls, including his sisters. Amy recounts how hurt she felt when no one told her firsthand, and confronting Josh in a “bold” and unrestrained way.
Amy recalls confronting Josh Duggar about his actions
Despite publically apologizing, essentially admitting to the accusations, Josh did not immediately face reprimands from his family; he was charged with possessing child sexual abuse images but made bail. This March, it was reported that his 12-year jail sentence had been extended by almost two months.
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In light of his admission to groping several individuals, his family sent him to a faith-based counseling camp to deal with what was reported as a porn “addiction.” He was treated at Reformers Unanimous residential treatment, located in Rockford, Illinois.
Amy went there to confront Josh Duggar after his actions came to light. “He was staying in a trailer and I went in there and I said, ‘How could you do this?'” she recalled. “And I was very bold about that.” Amy said that Josh said he “knew better” than to try of his abuses on her.
Amy believes the family’s culture encouraged Josh Duggar
Amy is the niece of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and was often featured in their TLC show, essentially a main character in her own right, marketed as the rebellious Duggar who defied the family’s strict doctrines. Despite being a main fixture in the family’s televised image, however, Amy says she found out about Josh just “like the rest of the world,” and that was a whole other cause for dismay.
“I was pissed,” she said. “I felt like I wasn’t worth telling … that they didn’t want to protect me. They didn’t want anyone to know, [and] they wanted to keep it inside their little bubble.”
Part of that private lifestyle, Amy asserts, was a significant contributing factor in Josh feeling enabled. She credits Institute in Basic Life Principles, a nondenominational Christian organization that acts as an umbrella to several other ministries.
“The IBLP prizes the first child, [and] it doesn’t get much better than if it’s a son,” she said. “They hold the family name and the family value. If you’re valued from the moment you’ve been born and people hide your secrets and cover up things, and you never get in trouble for the things that you’re doing, I believe you just become numb to how the world really is, and how the law really is. It’s so sad how far it was taken, where he thought he could get away with anything.”
