14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, news broke (and was later confirmed) that Josh Duggar, the eldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, TLC’s biggest reality stars at the moment, had molested 5 minor girls when he was a teenager. The scandal had been covered up until that moment, and it seems that the Duggars have been keeping more ugly secrets from the fans.
The Duggars are stars of their own reality show, 19 Kids and Counting (formerly 17 and then 18 Kids and Counting), and they have a very loyal fanbase because they’re conservative Christians whose lifestyle seems ripped out of the pages of history.
Until this scandal, they kept up the appearance of a family untouched by modern reality, and as such, uncorrupted by it. Apparently, it wasn’t entirely genuine.
Children are disciplined with a “spanking rod”
Josh Duggar molested the 5 minor girls, some of whom were his own sisters, in 2002 and 2003, and the family managed to keep the secret until 2006, when authorities got involved and launched an investigation. It dead-ended soon and no charges were ever pressed against him.
The police report in the case was made public at request last week, but all documents have been destroyed since at the demand of one of the victims, who is still a minor. She didn’t want her identity to be disclosed, so the Springdale Police Department complied.
Radar Online says that, in one of those reports, there was another bit of interesting info on one of the most famous families in reality television, namely that parent Michelle and Jim Bob are also guilty of child abuse.
Apparently, one of the victims was “asked about being spanked,” to which she answered in the positive. Asked what she had been spanked with, she replied: “They have a rod. [They] do this to all the kids.” She said the rod never left any bruises.
Parents covered Josh’s “mistake”
Hours after word got out of the abuse, Josh issued a statement to say he’d been young and confused, so he took advantage of 5 minor girls. He added that, since then, he’d understood the error of his ways and had found God, so he was a new man. Not one word was spared for his victims.
His parents included their own statement in the release that was sent to the press, saying he’d been through a very difficult time. Their admission came as details emerged that they had covered his misdeeds for years, even lying to the police at one point when they said he’d received “treatment” for them. In reality, he’d just been sent away from home for a few months, to work with a friend in construction / home remodeling.
“[Josh] made some very bad mistakes, and we were shocked. We had tried to teach him right from wrong. That dark and difficult time caused us to seek God like never before,” the Duggar parents said.
The irony in this is that, in many of their interviews, both Jim Bob and Michelle positioned themselves as figures of authority beyond reproach. They would often speak against gay marriage and the transgender community, saying they were a danger to kids. Jim Bob even said incest should be considered a “capital crime.” But that obviously didn’t apply to his own son.