Reading Time: 4 minutes
Amy Duggar King once felt a connection to Josh Duggar.
That connection is long gone.
But their former bond also made learning his true nature that much more chilling.
The Duggar cousin is opening up about confronting Josh — and his harrowing response.
Amy Duggar learned what Josh is from the news, just like everyone else
In 2015, the world learned that Josh Duggar had molested four of his younger sisters and another underage girl — a babysitter.
This monstrous revelation led to TLC canceling 19 Kids and Counting, though it would go on to platform the Duggar family for years after this through Counting On.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Amy Duggar King reveals that she learned of Josh’s unforgivable crimes just like everyone else — from the news.
After the news broke, she drove to Jim Bob’s house to confront her evil cousin. She wanted answers.
“He was extremely passive, non-responsive,” Amy recalled about Josh’s initial response.
“[He was] looking down at the floor for the longest time, didn’t have much to say at all,” Amy described.
She, however, was a flurry of emotion.
“I was furious and red in the face, crying,” she admitted. “Just my heart beating so fast out of my chest.”
Eventually, however, Josh spoke up. And his haunting statement will haunt her for life.
“He looked at me right into my eyes and said, ‘I knew better,’” Amy shared. “And it was the creepiest smile I’ve ever seen.”
She describes the same encounter in her memoir
In her book, Holy Disruptor: Shattering the Shiny Facade by Getting Louder with the Truth, she goes into further detail.
“As I continued to stare directly into his eyes, a slow smile spread across his face,” Amy Duggar described in her memoir.
“It was the kind of smile that sent shivers down my spine,” she admitted.
Amy characterized his expression as “a twisted grin that was unlocking a world of chaos, suffering, and pain that was yet to come for my family.”
There was an interruption in the confrontation, however. And it was by the same man who shielded Josh from legal consequences for his crimes until the statute of limitations ran out.
According to Amy, “just as the tension reached its peak,” Jim Bob burst into the room.
“Now, Amy, let’s not stir up contempt,” he allegedly told Amy, his voice dripping with condescension.
That would be an unhinged statement under any context. But, we must remember that we’re talking about people in a cult.
Many subcultures have unique turns of phrase. It is not always sinister. But these people make up their own phrases so that language alone separates the in-group from the out-group.
“His son was a predator, and yet he was more worried about my language and tone of voice,” Amy remarked.
Jim Bob was (as usual) just super weird about everything
When speaking to Fox News Digital, Amy admitted that she felt like her uncle was experiencing some form of denial.
“This is just my opinion, we’ll just put that out there, [but] I think the reality was too much,” she admitted.
“I think the harsh reality was heartbreaking, and it was too much,” Amy reiterated.
“But I don’t know what was going through his mind,” she emphasized. “I can’t really speak for my uncle, and I’m not going to, but I just know that if I were in that situation, I would have parented very differently.”
For one thing, Amy says that she would have gotten help for Josh’s victims. But that would require seeing the girls as both victims and full human beings, rather than as temptresses and property — as the cult perceives them.
Truth be told, Jim Bob’s thoughts may have been denial. But they could also have been a natural extension of the cult’s beliefs.
Historically, one of the theological selling points of Christianity has been a divine forgiveness. Through different mechanisms (according to denomination), Christians believe that their wrongdoings can be expunged.
So, though Josh cost the family their (first) reality show and had to resign in disgrace as a lobbyist for noted hate group the Family Research Council, Jim Bob may have truly seen Josh’s heinous crimes as irrelevant due to divine intercession.
Whatever his family believes happened to him on a spiritual level, Josh obviously did not change. The crimes behind Josh’s prison sentence prove that.
A belief in forgiveness-through-faith brings comfort to many. But regardless of creed, there are many people in this world who will use this concept as a cover to continue to prey upon the helpless and the trusting.
Amy Duggar Recalls Josh’s ‘Twisted Grin’ After Molestation Scandal Came … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.