During the second part of Megyn Kelly’s Fox News interviews with the Duggar family, Jill and Jessa Duggar, who did confirm that they were molested by their older brother Josh. While they did defend him against the media backlash, they did explain what their parents did to make sure it didn’t happen again.
Jill, now 24, said that she was 12 when she was abused. Jessa, 22, said that she was 9 or 10 at the time of the abuse. According to the Associated Press, they told Kelly that their parents put locks on their bedroom doors to prevent Josh from getting in. They also tried to limit their playing time with their brother.
At other points in the interview, Jessa said that her brother should not be called a “child molester or a pedophile or a rapist.”
“Josh was a boy, a young boy in puberty and a little too curious about girls,” Jessa later explained. “And that got him into some trouble. And he made some bad choices, but, really, the extent of it was mild – inappropriate touching on fully clothed victims, most of it while [the] girls were sleeping.”
Jill said that most of what the media is reporting are lies, which is why they decided to do the interview. “It's not the truth. And for the truth's sake, we wanted to come out and set the record straight,” she said.
People notes that Jessa said that their life will go on if TLC ultimately cancels 19 Kids And Counting, which the network still has not done.
“We’re not a TV family,” she said. “We’re a family that just happened to be on TV.”
screenshot from Entertainment Tonight YouTube video