Jim And Michelle Duggar Defend Son Josh: ‘It Was Not Unforgivable’
Last Wednesday, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar defended their son Josh as they opened up about their family’s sex scandal. Jim Bob and Michelle’s interview with Megyn Kellyn on Fox News was the first time that The Duggars spoke after news of the scandal broke out two weeks ago.
According to a police report recently obtained by the media, the said scandal happened in 2002 when Josh was still 14 years of age. While his sisters were sleeping, he snuck into their bedroom and touched their breasts and vaginal areas.
Police report shows Duggar parents waited 16 months before reporting #JoshDuggar molestation to authorities pic.twitter.com/SdKn5ccUVv
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) June 4, 2015
This incident didn’t happen once. Josh confessed that this occurred four to five times and also occurred when one his sisters was sleeping on the couch. Furthermore, the report also revealed that among the seven acts of sexual molestation incurred by Josh, one of them involved a family friend.
In the interview, Michelle recalled how Josh admitted his mistakes to both his parents. The teenager tearfully confronted them about “improperly touching” some of his sisters.
Michelle gave a statement.
“I think as parents we felt, ‘We’re failures.’ We tried to raise our kids to do what’s right to know what’s right, and one of our children made some really bad choices, and I think as a parent, we were just, we were devastated.”
Despite acknowledging that Josh made a “bad choice” Jim Bob defended Josh by explaining, “He said he was just curious about girls and he had gone in and just basically touched them over their clothes while they were sleeping.” He emphasized that the teenager’s sisters didn’t even know that he touched them.
Jim Bob continued by pointing out that what happened “was not rape.” He said that what Josh did was simply touching people over their clothes. “There were some instances touching under the clothes, but it was a few seconds,” he added.
The Duggars insisted that Josh asked for forgiveness from the victims who were too young to even understand the whole situation. They also claimed that they sent Josh to a non-professional Christian-based counselling program in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim Bob said that sending Josh to the counseling program was “the best decision” they ever made as parents because it helped their son become “closer to God as a result.”
But The Duggars are not the only ones defending Josh. His fans have also stood up for him saying that his apology was already effort enough for the mistakes he made. They also asked to “cut him some slack” as he is not the first person to commit such crimes.
[Image via Getty Images]
