Jill Duggar Dillard felt 'obligated' to defend her brother Josh's alleged sexual abuse to avoid wasting her household's TV present

• Jill Duggar Dillard stated she felt “obligated” to do a 2015 interview during which she defended her brother Josh Duggar.
• Josh admitted to sexually abusing 4 of his sisters as a teen, per a police report.
• Dillard’s husband described the 2015 interview as “a suicide mission” that Jim Bob Duggar despatched his daughters on.

In Prime Video’s new four-part docuseries “Shiny Comfortable Folks: Duggar Household Secrets and techniques,” former TLC star Jill Duggar Dillard stated she felt “obligated” to take part in an interview with Fox Information anchor Megyn Kelly during which she stated she forgave her brother Josh Duggar for allegedly sexually abusing her. 

Dillard stated in an interview for “Shiny Comfortable Folks” that her father’s PR consultant, Chad Gallagher, arrange an interview with Kelly in order that TLC would possibly determine to maintain the household’s actuality sequence “19 Youngsters and Counting” on the air within the aftermath of Josh’s molestation scandal.

Within the 2015 interview on Kelly’s present “The Kelly File,” Dillard and her sister, Jessa Duggar Seewald, claimed that lots of the headlines about Josh had been “lies,” although they did imagine what he did was “unsuitable.” 

“We did not even learn about it till he went and confessed it to my mother and father they usually shared it with us,” a 24-year-old Dillard advised Kelly on the time. 

Seewald, who was 22 on the time of the interview with Kelly, referred to as Josh’s habits “gentle, inappropriate touching.”

However in “Shiny Comfortable Folks,” Dillard’s husband Derick stated that Dillard and Seewald did not do the interview with Kelly voluntarily. He stated his spouse and sister-in-law had been chosen by Jim Bob and others to “perform a suicide mission,” and theorized that Jim Bob thought his daughters wanted to “take the autumn” in order that the present might proceed.

Dillard stated within the new docuseries that she would not have performed the interview if given the selection once more. Although she was a sufferer, she stated she was “bearing the burden and the load” of her household’s monetary future and he or she felt “obligated” to “assist.”

Josh Duggar’s molestation scandal grew to become public in 2015, and the Dillards have distanced themselves from the Duggar household within the years since

In 2015, InTouch acquired a police report made in 2006, which might now be considered on internet hosting website Imgur, that exhibits statements supplied by Jim Bob, the patriarch of the Duggar household. Per the report, Jim Bob first came upon about Josh’s alleged molestation in 2002, when one of many women stated the eldest Duggar brother was touching her breasts and genitals as she slept.

The police report alleges that Josh sexually abused 4 of his sisters whereas they slept, and at instances whereas they had been awake. The police report didn’t specify which sisters Josh allegedly abused, although Gawker has reported that there have been 5 sisters, who ranged in age from 5 to 12, dwelling within the Duggar home on the time the alleged abuse befell.

No expenses had been ever filed towards Josh by the police officer who took the report in 2006. As an alternative, Josh was despatched house with a warning as a result of Jim Bob was buddies with the officer, based on former buddies of Jim Bob’s who spoke within the new Prime Video docuseries.

The unique Duggar actuality present, “19 Youngsters and Counting,” was canceled in July 2015, two months after InTouch Weekly’s report. “Jill & Jessa: Counting On,” ultimately renamed “Counting On,” premiered as a by-product in early 2016.

Although the spinoff did not characteristic Jim Bob and Michelle in its first few seasons, Dillard stated within the docuseries her father was the one that made the take care of TLC by means of his manufacturing firm, Mad Household Inc. The community paid Jim Bob, Dillard stated, and Dillard claimed she “by no means noticed any payout” from her TV appearances as an grownup.

She stated in “Shiny Comfortable Folks” that she “did not need to” do the brand new present, however had by no means stated no to her household earlier than. Within the docuseries, Dillards stated they give up “Counting On” in 2017 after they realized that Jim Bob had manipulated them underneath false pretenses into signing a contract for filming the present on the day earlier than their wedding ceremony. Their departure additionally got here on the heels of Derick Dillard’s homophobic and transphobic tweets.

Jim Bob later agreed to pay a few of his youngsters a minimum-wage lump sum so as to seem on the sequence, Dillard stated in “Shiny Comfortable Folks.” But when she needed to obtain fee, she stated, she needed to agree to offer her father’s manufacturing firm the correct to movie her life in perpetuity.

“We had been routinely like, ‘we’re performed,'” she stated of her response to seeing the phrases of the contract her father anticipated her to signal.

Dillard had not gone into element concerning the restrictive phrases of the contract she stated she was provided up to now, although she advised Folks in 2020 that she wasn’t compensated for her time on the TLC actuality exhibits till after she left “Counting On” in 2017. Folks reported that Jim Bob was the “main payee” for each exhibits, which got here with “an estimated $25,000 to $45,000 per episode paycheck.”

Dillard advised Folks she needed to get a lawyer concerned to get better a few of the cash she felt she was owed. “It was a course of,” she stated. (On the time, TLC declined to remark when reached by Folks.) In accordance with Folks, Derick stated in a video on the Dillard household’s YouTube channel that the amount of cash they had been in a position to get “ended up being a bit of greater than minimal wage.”

TLC confirmed that “Counting On” was canceled in June 2021, following Josh Duggar’s April 2021 arrest on child-pornography expenses and widespread petitions from followers. Josh was convicted on the costs and is presently serving a 12.5 12 months jail sentence.

Representatives for Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, Jill and Derick Dillard, and TLC did not instantly reply to Insider’s requests for remark.

“Shiny Comfortable Folks” is out there to stream now on Prime Video.