We already knew this interview was NOT Jill Duggar Dillard‘s idea — nor what she would have wanted to say to the public. But it gets worse.
OK, rewind…
Many years before the child porn conviction, teen Josh Duggar confessed to his parents he had been touching his younger sisters and a family friend while they slept. It’s unclear if he came clean because he got caught. We do know from the testimony of family friends Jim and Bobye Holt that he molested their daughters, too — and one fought back and told.
In any case, 19 Kids and Counting patriarch Jim Bob Duggar tried to sweep the whole thing under the rug, and it worked — until 2015. The police report Jim Bob had apparently gotten buried leaked out. The whole family had to circle the wagons and… defend Josh??
Related: The Story Of The ‘Most Offensive’ Thing Josh Is Accused Of Downloading
Yeah, Jill has already admitted in the Shiny Happy People docuseries that Jim Bob made her feel she was “obligated” to do an interview for “damage control.” She and Jessa Duggar Seewald sat down with Megyn Kelly, who was still with Fox News at the time. They basically said this was a family matter and they wanted to put it all behind them. They implied the real problem was the leak and not, you know, being molested by their older brother. As for Josh, they actually defended him!
Now we have an even more disturbing idea why. HE WAS IN THE FREAKIN’ ROOM!
In her shocking new memoir, Counting The Cost, Jill has revealed that Josh was in the room, off camera. She had to face her abuser while being asked about it. Horrifying. She writes in her book that having to talk about it while he was right there “was like having a bandage ripped off a deep and open wound.” In an excerpt obtained by DailyMail.com, she wrote:
“On that day we had taken our seats beneath the bright lights at the Big House and did what we could to stand up for our parents. Answering all Megyn’s questions, with Josh watching from a couch just out of shot, was like having a bandage ripped off a deep and open wound. It was agony, so painful that I didn’t really pause to ask why Josh was allowed to be there in the first place.”
Well, we’ll ask for heaven’s sake!
We already understand how Jim Bob feels about women being less important and how his firstborn son needed to be protected at all costs. But WTF was Megyn Kelly thinking allowing that?! How gross!
Obviously they should never have been made to do the interview in the first place, but under these circumstances? Forget catharsis or truth, you’re not going to get any of that with the abuser watching from the couch! She continued:
“What was worse was the fact that I’d hoped it would calm things down. It hadn’t. The paparazzi were still chasing us, the internet still feasting on us, poring over every statement from the network, every new photo, every new angle. My nightmares were getting worse and there was nothing I could do to block any of it out. All I was doing was surviving from one breath to the next.”
So upsetting.
For those who have seen the interview, their answers certainly make a lot more sense now, right? Like when Jessa said
“I do want to speak up in his defense against people who are calling him a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist, some people are saying. I’m like, that is so overboard and a lie, really. I mean, people get mad at me for saying that but I am like, I can say this, you know? I was one of the victims.”
She continued:
“Josh was a boy, a young boy in puberty and a little too curious about girls, and that got him into some trouble. And he made some bad choices, but, really, the extent of it was mild — inappropriate touching on fully clothed victims, most of it while [the] girls were sleeping.”
Jim Bob’s words coming out of her mouth. He was still selling that BS in his CSAM trial testimony. And the judge wasn’t buying.
Again, we now know “the extent of it” — including admitting to touching girls in their “private areas” under their “pantaloons and underwear.” The youngest such girl was four years old.
So no, it wasn’t a lie. Putting them on camera with Josh watching them the whole time — that was the lie. Watch the interview with fresh eyes if you can stomach it (below):
[Image via Fox News Insider/YouTube/Washington County Detention Center.]
