Josh Duggar has spent the last several months in prison after being found guilty on counts of receiving and possessing child pornography. He was sentenced to 151 months in prison. He is appealing, but while Duggar has been incarcerated, there has been additional scrutiny on the former 19 Kids and Counting star’s past behavior before federal agents showed up to arrest him in 2021. There’s been additional scrutiny on his famous father Jim Bob Duggar’s alleged actions, as well.
Fans of the reality series will remember a scandal from years prior, in which In Touch outed a report indicating that a younger Josh Duggar had molested some young women, including several of his sisters. The incident had been handled privately and the report had been sealed, but was able to be accessed through a Freedom of Information Act request. Duggar had filed a lawsuit over the public molestation reveal, but he lost it and subsequent appeals.
Meanwhile, 19 Kids and Counting was canceled and life moved on. Josh married his wife Anna and they had children (7 to date). Several of his family members joined the cast of Counting On --which aired on TLC, the same network as the family's former reality show. Josh got a job working for the Family Research council, but later switched to selling cars after an alleged Ashley Madison cheating scandal came to light. In the larger family narrative, Jim Bob and Michelle still allegedly controlled a lot of things behind the scenes, with the famous patriarch reportedly taking the lion’s share of the money made from reality TV.
On top of this, a new report from Without A Crystal Ball indicates that early in the history of Josh Duggar’s reported issues, his parents were aware of what was going on and crafted narratives to explain his behavior. According to what an insider told Katie Joy, Jim Bob reportedly threw his wife Michelle under the bus over the issue.
In 2006, Michelle had told her friends the reason Josh was the way he was is because when he was eight years old [sic] he found a box of men’s magazines. And that was why he did what he did. Well, Michelle’s story didn’t match what Jim Bob’s story was. So, once Jim Bob started talking to his friends, this friend told me that he actually started blaming Michelle. He told a bunch of the people at church that Michelle was promiscuous in high school and because she was promiscuous in high school, and because she would sometimes self please herself, Josh inherited her tendencies.
If true, that’s quite the accusation, though it’s worth noting this is all secondhand information from unnamed sources. Regardless, YouTuber Katie Joy said she spoke to insiders who had contact with individuals in both Michelle Duggar and Jim Bob’s camps and they were allegedly speaking about a period of time in which Josh Duggar had his head shaved (he was seen with his head shaved in TV specials, so this is confirmed) and was living away from the main home (allegedly) while his family figured out what to do about his tendencies.
Separately, Katie Joy also noted an insider shared Jim Bob reportedly went out of his way to keep the blame for Josh’s behaviors on “external circumstances.” She also said:
He was saying that Michelle’s sin and problems with premarital promiscuity and pleasuring herself in her teen years was the reason for why Josh did what he did to his sisters. He also said at one point that he became like his father or inherited things from his father, but he wouldn’t specify what his father did. Jim Bob would basically point the finger at anyone else.
Jim Bob and Michelle haven’t publicly spoken out about Josh much since his arrest, trial and ultimate imprisonment. When the verdict came down, the Duggar parents did break their silence and write “the entire ordeal has been very grievous” and that they were “praying for Joshua,” though they didn’t go so far as to agree with the court’s decision as some of the other Duggar family members did. Jim Bob had also been seen in the courtroom during the trial, while Michelle had asked for “leniency” ahead of sentencing.
