Jeremy Vuolo’s 2008 arrest for harassing a police officer was an important moment in his life, even if it seemed like rock bottom at the time. The Counting On star, who is married to Jinger Duggar Vuolo, shared his perspective on the turning point in his life while speaking to Us Weekly about the couple’s new book, The Hope We Hold.
Jeremy’s arrest came when he was a student at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, when he grabbed an officer while out drinking with friends. His punishment was only $250 in fines, but Jeremy said it was a wake-up call that he wasn’t living the life he wanted. “I was just kind of on a path of hanging out with people that had the wrong idea of where they were going and just getting kind of absorbed in that life,” the TLC star, now 33, said in April. “It was a huge wake-up call.”
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The biggest part of his arrest was coming “face-to-face with the reality that if I was going to call myself a Christian, I needed to live for Christ and not for me,” he explained. “Or if I was gonna keep living for myself, I needed to not call myself a Christian.” It was a “miserable” time in his life in general, with the college student becoming “distant” from family while hiding how he was living up at college, partying with friends and drinking.
Reevaluating his life, Jeremy would get back on track with his faith and eventually marry Jinger in 2016. The two are now parents to two daughters, 2-year-old Felicity and 5-month-old Evangeline. Looking back on the arrest, Jeremy said people “sometimes look back and try to rip [him] for it,” but their comments don’t have the intended effect. “They were like, ‘Oh, aren’t you ashamed?’ It’s like, well, yeah, of course I’m ashamed of the action, but I am so thankful that God did in my life what he did because it was a wake-up call,” he shared.
Jeremy’s reflection on his encounter with the law came shortly before Jinger’s brother, Josh Duggar, was arrested on April 29 on child pornography charges. He has pleaded not guilty. “We are disturbed to hear of the charges against Josh,” Jinger and Jeremy said in a joint statement shortly after his arrest. “While this case must go through the legal system, we want to make it clear that we absolutely condemn any form of child abuse and fully support the authorities and judicial process in their pursuit of justice.”
