Jill Duggar revealed how she felt about her disgraced brother Josh Duggar’s child pornography scandal in her new tell-all memoir, Counting the Cost.
“I had thought about what Josh had done and reached a clear conclusion,” the 19 Kids and Counting alum, 32, wrote in her book, which was released on Tuesday, September 12. “After years and years of following the family line and trusting Pops when he said that things were better dealt with within the family, I wanted something different to happen. I wanted to know the truth. I wanted the evidence to come out. And I wanted Josh to be put away for a very long time.”
Jill then revealed she “felt anger at what he’d done — so much anger, it burned.”
“He had hurt innocent children by his actions, and then continued to avoid responsibility,” Jill continued. “I felt sad too. Sad that Josh had become such a monster; sad that even with all the chances Josh had been given to change, he had thrown them away as he continued down a dark, terrible road. Like the rest of the world, I was finally able to see my eldest brother for what he was — a man unable to control himself, totally detached from the reality of how deeply he was hurting others.”
Though Jill did not appear in court to testify against Josh during his 2021 trial, she noted in her memoir that she followed the news. As more information about her older brother, 35, came to light, Jill realized that “the safest place for Josh, and those around him, was prison,” she added in her book.
“In the past, he had apologized for looking at adult porn,” Jill recalled, referring to when Josh was revealed to have been a member of the affair website Ashley Madison in August 2015. “Now that he had walked into deeper and darker sins, he seemed to grow less remorseful. He never admitted to the crimes he most recently committed, never expressed any guilt or remorse. Maybe he was actually worried this time about the very real potential consequences that faced him. I don’t know. But the whole thing made me feel sick to my core.”
After Josh was sentenced to 12.5 years behind bars for his child pornography charges, Jill recalled noting, “I think they got it right.’”
In addition to Josh’s conviction and imprisonment, Jill’s new book also details her perspective on the Duggar family’s lives, including following the non-denominational Christian organization Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Other parts of the memoir recall moments between Jill and her father, Jim Bob Duggar, whom she calls “Pops” in the book. Among the most shocking revelations was when he yelled at Jill and called her “guilty” for speaking out against him and her mother, Michelle Duggar.
