Reading Time: 3 minutes
In 2015, the world learned what Josh Duggar really is.
Only this year has the world learned the grim truth about his brother, Joseph.
But Amy Duggar has described their paternal grandfather as a “predator.”
Does she believe that this one evil man is the origin of a twisted family curse?
‘It’s just so sickening to me’
On the Tuesday, July 14 episode of The Sarah Fraser Show, Amy discussed Josh and Joe’s arrests.
She characterized the scandal as “a nightmare that literally never ends.”
Amy remarked: “It blows my mind when I hear about these double lives and just how quickly they can make a decision that’s just so heart-wrenching.”
She admitted: “I don’t understand Joseph’s behavior; I don’t understand Josh’s.”
Amy elaborated: “Like, I can’t comprehend it, it’s just so sickening to me.”
During the chat, Amy fielded the question of whether her late grandfather, Jimmy Lee, could have somehow exposed her disgraced cousins to something or straight-up sexually abused them.
(She has previously shared that her paternal grandfather was a monster and that her door was locked at night, with other family keeping her from spending any time alone with Jimmy.)
According to Amy, following Joseph’s arrests (plural), she and her mother Deanna have “definitely talked about” whether Jimmy was a direct influence.
She explained that her “boy cousins” would visit their grandfather at car lots pretty often.
Amy admitted: “I don’t know what could have been possible.”
‘Hurt people hurt people’
“I don’t think they were protected, that’s my own opinion,” Amy shared.
“I honestly don’t think they were protected,” she explained, “because I don’t understand how they’re smiling in mugshots.”
Amy continued: “And how they go about life and the decisions that they’ve made if they haven’t been hurt in the past.”
She speculated: “There is trauma somewhere deep, deep, deep, somewhere there that they just have not dealt with, because hurt people hurt people.”
Amy continued: “And as we know, abusers, they take years to uncover and they’re like onions, and so the layers that they have … I don’t know how far the rabbit hole goes on that.”
For whatever it’s worth, Amy also speculated that time on reality television might explain why her cousins smile so sickeningly for mugshots. That could be true, but it’s not necessary. It also isn’t particularly important.
We have to emphasize that, by far, the majority of victims of sexual abuse do not go on to become predators.
Additionally, most predators are not themselves victims. This is a damaging myth that sometimes makes survivors reluctant to come forward, for fear of prejudice and unwarranted suspicion.
In reality, there are multiple factors that might make multiple members of the same family into sexual predators.
We have previously reported that the extreme and strict social bubble that the Duggars inhabit — the family cult, IBLP, all of it — is an ideal hunting ground for predators, whose victims are more likely to lack the language or autonomy to report the crimes, and whose authority figures are less likely to report such crimes.
Amy Duggar Speculates if ‘True Monster’ Grandfather Influenced Josh & … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.