Amy Duggar King is sending an open letter to cousin Anna Duggar letting her know there’s no shame in divorcing her husband Josh Duggar as the former 19 Kids and Counting star awaits sentencing on two charges of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse materials. Sharing a photo of the two hugging on her wedding day, Amy began her lengthy message by assuring Anna, “I feel for you.”
“No woman wants to be in your shoes,” she continued. “You’re faced with an impossible decision and you’re being surrounded by the wrong kind of support. You’ve been taught since you were a child that marriage is forever and you prayed for God to send you a partner. You’ve constructed a life and a family with him. You didn’t choose any of this, and your kids certainly didn’t either.”
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Amy continued that she wasn’t “coming after” Anna with “some tough love sort of thing,” but simply wanted to share what was “on [her] heart.” After reading the letter Anna’s father wrote to the court in support of lenient sentencing for Josh, Amy wrote she cried: “It’s no wonder you’re struggling to know what to do to protect your own kids … you’ve obviously never had an example there. That’s awful and I’m so sorry for that.”
The TLC family cousin continued, “Someday your kids will be old enough to understand what kind of guy their father really is. You can’t protect them from the truth for forever! I’m saying all of this publicly so that when they do grow up, they will also know that they had family members shouting from the rooftops that they were worth protecting all along.”
Amy then appeared to Anna as a mother of seven children, offering to help with whatever she would need if she decided to divorce Josh. Amy concluded her letter by saying she knows “standing up to all of this seems impossible now, but as a Mama, your instinct to protect your kids always has to be stronger than your fear,” adding that “the only people you would upset by leaving are the ones willing to sacrifice you and your children’s safety to protect Josh and his secrets.”
Anna has publicly supported Josh through his child sexual abuse material trial, writing a letter in May 2022 asking the judge to only hand down the minimum sentence of five years. Josh faces up to 20 years in prison on each charge when he faces sentencing on May 25 in the Western District of Arkansas Federal Court.
