Jill Duggar Dillard is opening up about some of her regrets surrounding the immediate aftermath of her older brother Josh Duggar’s 2015 molestation scandal. The second-eldest Duggar daughter reveals in the new Prime Video documentary Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets that she felt forced into the June 2015 interview on Fox News with Megyn Kelly in which she identified herself as one of Josh’s victims alongside sister Jessa Duggar Seewald.
The interview is “something that I’m not proud of,” Jill recalled in a tearful segment of the documentary series. “If I hadn’t felt obligated to, one, do it for the sake of the show, and two, do it for the sake of my parents, I wouldn’t have done it.” During the 2015 Fox News interview, Duggar patriarch Jim Bob Duggar confessed that Josh had “improperly touched” some of his sisters as a teenager. Jill and Jessa, who said they were asleep at the time and didn’t know anything had happened, also told Kelly at the time that they had known other girls who had been through worse things, so they didn’t think Josh’s behavior was comparatively a big deal.
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In hindsight, Jill said through tears in the new Prime Video doc that she wouldn’t have done the interview with Kelly, but felt pressured by her family to do as she was told. “There was an urgency to figure out how the show was going to be handled in the wake of 2015 events,” she said. “As far as recovery and damage control, you just feel like the burden and the weight falls on you to help, because you’re the only one who can.”
“I would not call it voluntary,” added Jill’s husband, Derick Dillard. “Basically being called on to carry out a suicide mission: You’re gonna destroy yourself, but we need you to take the fall so you can carry the show forward because the show cannot fail. And they were gonna do whatever they could to get the return on their investment,” even if it meant Jill would become “collateral damage.”
In May 2022, Josh would be sentenced to more than 12 years in prison in May 2022 after being found guilty of two counts of receiving and possessing child pornography, with the molestation of his sisters coming into play during his trial. Ahead of the release of Shiny Happy People, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar released a statement calling it a “derogatory and sensationalized” depiction.
“We have always believed that the best chance to repair damaged relationships, or to reconcile differences, is through love in a private setting,” their statement reads, in part. “We love every member of our family and will continue to do all we can to have a good relationship with each one. …Through both the triumphs and the trials we have clung to our faith all the more and discovered that through the love and grace of Jesus, we find strength, comfort, and purpose.” Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets drops June 2 on Prime Video.
