With Jill and Jessa: Counting On returning to TLC this Tuesday, people are questioning whether the Duggars’ cousin, Amy King, will also return to the show. Amy’s appearance made a unique contrast to the Duggar daughters — Amy appeared in jeans, and her plans for her life were a bit different. Instead of a focus on marrying and raising a family, she sought to begin a country music career.
Though today she’s married and helping run her husband’s business, a number of rumors have circulated about the couple’s relationship to Amy’s cousins, and some fans have inquired about a possible return to reality TV. As you can see in the video below, billed as the “rebel cousin,” Amy appeared on the show as a contrast, dressed more casually than her cousins, and a convenient scapegoat.
“She does like to start trouble every once in a while.”
Though Amy’s fame and the fan following she has acquired from her role on 19 Kids and Counting gets credit for boosting her social media presence enough to make it possible for her to have sponsored posts (see below), the show failed to launch her musical career, and Amy says her primary job is working with her husband.
The couple have responded several times to criticism and rumors that they somehow live off of Jim Bob Duggar, or use the fame acquired from Amy’s appearance on the show to get free things, and that they are paid to give interviews and leak secrets about the Duggar family. Though the pair deny all such allegations, their designation on social media pages is as a “public figure,” and the questions from fans keep coming.
This week, on Amy and Dillon’s Facebook page, they responded directly to questions regarding any possible appearances on the upcoming show, and about their upcoming move. Specifically, the pair say they won’t be appearing on the newest Duggar reality show, and no, despite rumors and speculation, they are not moving to live next door to the Duggar family.
Are there hard feelings between the Duggar cousin and her family, and is that to blame for her distance from the popular show? She has spoken extensively on her blog about the drama and negativity she encountered in relation to her cousin, Josh’s. actions, but also still shares images of herself spending time with Anna Duggar, Jinger Duggar, and others in the family.
However, her recent revelations that the Duggar sisters aren’t allowed to visit her lest she “influence” them, combined with her rather cutting remarks about “fundies” who “[stay] home…sewing skirts and memorizing the whole Bible” suggest that relations aren’t quite as friendly as they might be, though she told People in September that the series of scandals had brought her family “closer now than it ever has been.”
It appears that instead of preparing herself to give interviews on a TLC set and join her cousins in the spotlight, the Duggar cousin will be focusing on the new house that she and her husband will be moving to (ET reports it’s one of her grandmother’s properties, and Amy told them it’s a fixer-upper), and working with her husband’s business, Wet Ink Designs.
The new season of Jill and Jessa: Counting On starts on March 15, despite protests, boycotts, and companies refusing to advertise during Duggar programming. Previews show the new season focusing on the older Duggar offspring — the married daughters’ lives as parents, and the other siblings’ current projects and plans, including the ever-present question of courtship.
However, it appears Duggar cousin Amy King won’t be a part of it — at least for now.