Josh Duggar, the disgraced former star of 19 Kids and Counting, has complained about being removed from his family's reality television show and claimed that nobody supported him after it was revealed he had molested four of his sisters in 2015. The 38-year-old, currently serving a 12-year and seven-month federal prison sentence for possessing child sexual abuse materials, wrote a message to his mother, Michelle Duggar, from jail. According to People, he stated that he and his wife Anna were 'devastated' by how the family handled the scandal.
Duggar asserted that 'no one banded together to stand with us' and that they were 'kept at arm's length by most of the family' and 'cut off from public view on tv.' He also urged his mother to 'please consider your role and change so that other children are not in the same situations later.' Although his parents, Michelle and Jim Bob, admitted that he had molested his sisters, he was never charged over those accusations.
The message to his mother was sent after Duggar was convicted in 2022 for possessing child sexual abuse materials. He is currently serving his sentence in federal prison. While Duggar acknowledged that his mother supported him 'privately' following both incidents, he said it felt as 'if there were 18 kids and life went on.' Notably, Duggar recently defended his younger brother Joseph, 31, following Joseph's arrest for alleged sexual abuse of a nine-year-old girl.
In his message, Duggar allegedly wrote: '[I]ts (sic) hard to be here while everyone is out going and doing. its (sic) especially hard in light of how things have been since may 2015 when everything was devastated for Anna and I.' Both family shows were cancelled by TLC due to Duggar's actions, but he told his mother that 'the public statements and pr work to save shows and public images i feel were placed above family relationships' and that he believes they 'still are to this day.' He also accused her of worrying 'more about pr than anything else,' before adding, 'I am not trying to shift blame for anything, I am saying please consider your role and change so that other children are not in the same situations later.'
Duggar molested his four sisters and a babysitter between March 2002 and March 2003, when he was a teenager, according to a federal lawsuit they filed in 2017. In 2022, federal judge Timothy Brooks dismissed a lawsuit from the four sisters, who accused Arkansas officials of violating their privacy by releasing documents from the molestation investigation. While Brooks sympathized with the sisters, he argued that they had not proven that police intentionally violated the law. In his ruling, he explained that the four sisters 'were sexually abused by their brother, Joshua' between March 2002 and March 2003, when he was 14 and 15 years old. The girls were between the ages of 5 and 11 during the alleged abuse.
Brooks also oversaw Duggar's 2021 child pornography trial. Prosecutors said he downloaded 600 photographs and seven videos of violent child sexual abuse. Duggar is scheduled for release in October 2032, after which he will spend 20 years on supervised release. The four Duggar sisters, now all adults, were among the cast of 19 Kids and Counting, the TLC reality show that chronicled the devout Christian family's life in Arkansas. In 2015, the series was cancelled by TLC after the allegations became public. A family friend shared the tip about the molestation allegations with law enforcement, but the statute of limitations had expired. Duggar's parents later said he had admitted to molesting his sisters and apologized privately after the allegations resurfaced.
Duggar publicly apologized months later for having cheated on his wife Anna, and claimed he had been seeking treatment for an addiction to pornography. He and Anna share seven children. A few months later, TLC premiered a new reality show about the large family titled Counting On, which did not feature Duggar or his wife. That show was cancelled in 2021 following Duggar's arrest on a federal charge of possessing child sexual abuse materials.
In March, Duggar spoke from behind bars to dismiss child molestation allegations against his brother as 'sensationalized fiction.' His brother Joseph was arrested in March and charged in connection with allegations he inappropriately touched a nine-year-old girl. 'Josh understands the stigma of being accused,' his attorney told the Daily Mail. 'He lives with the painful reality of how false accusations can destroy a life. He understands how the targeting of a person for publicity can twist the truth into sensationalized fiction.' The attorney added that although 'Josh and Joe are not in frequent communication,' the jailed brother 'hopes and prays for his brother's well being in this difficult time.' Joseph, a married father of four, repeatedly engaged in 'unlawful sexual activity' with the underage girl during a family vacation in 2020 at Panama City Beach, according to the Bay County Sheriff's Office. He was released on a $600,000 bond.
