Amy Duggar King hopes her cousin Josh Duggar, who is behind bars for receiving and possessing child sexual abuse materials, is suffering for his actions.
“I hope every day is absolute torture for him,” the “19 Kids and Counting” and “Marriage Boot Camp” alum said in this week's issue of People. “I really hope that because what he saw and what he was seeing for his own fulfillment are those children who experience torture.”
Josh Duggar, 36, was convicted and sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison in May 2022 and is locked up at the FCI Seagoville federal prison in Texas. He is expected to remain in prison until October 2032, after his appeal was denied in October.
“He deserves every second there and I hope he has a longer tenure. I hope he makes a mistake again,” his cousin told the magazine.
The disgraced reality TV star and her ultra-religious family starred in the TLC hit “19 Kids and Counting,” which was canceled in 2015 after allegations surfaced that, as a teenager, he had sexually abused four of his younger sisters. , including Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald. The eldest son of Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar also started his own large family (he had seven children with his wife, Anna Duggar), but admitted to using the extramarital affair website Ashley Madison and entered rehab in 2015, allegedly for a pornography addiction.
The family's next show, “Counting On,” was canceled in 2021, months after Josh Duggar was arrested on child pornography charges.
Despite Duggar's conviction, his attorney has maintained his client's innocence, arguing that illicit images that were downloaded to a computer at a car dealership owned by Duggar could have been downloaded by someone else.
In 2023, Amazon Studios' four-part docuseries “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” dove into how the family's fundamentalist Christian religion, associated with the Institute for Basic Life Principles (founded by the fallen minister in unfortunately Bill Gothard), was a breeding ground for abusive behavior towards women and children.
The series included interviews with several family members, including Jill Duggar Dillard and Amy Duggar King, the only daughter of Jim Bob Duggar's older sister, Deanna Jordan. She did not grow up in the IBLP and had a less restrictive childhood than her cousins.
Amy Duggar King, 37, said she doesn't know if Josh Duggar is “working” on himself during his time in prison. However, she also said that she has not spoken to him.
“And I will not do it. I won’t do it,” he told People. “When you cross those evil lines like that, there's no turning back. “I just think there is no turning back.”
