Jinger and Joy-Anna Duggar reflected on their family’s recent scandals while discussing how they are coping with “hard seasons” in their lives.
“Family stuff has probably been the other thing,” Joy-Anna, 28, told her sister on the Wednesday, September 2, episode of the “Jinger & Jeremy” podcast while speaking candidly about times where they struggled to find joy. (Joy-Anna named the 2019 stillbirth of her daughter Annabell as another dark time in her life.)
“We’ve had wave after wave of just sickening, horrible things happening,” the 19 Kids and Counting alum continued. “And it really just sends me into a spiral. And those have been really hard seasons. And I feel like I’m coming out of that finally with this last run we went through of family stuff. But it just feels like, you know, sin is so dark and so heavy, and it’s hard to find true joy.”
Though Joy-Anna and Jinger, 32, did not go into specifics regarding their family drama, their discussion comes as eldest brother Josh Duggar is serving more than 12 years in federal prison following his 2021 conviction on charges of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Meanwhile, their brother Joseph Duggar was arrested in March on child molestation charges and accused of sexually abusing a then-9-year-old victim during a family vacation in Florida in 2020. After being extradited to the Sunshine State, Joseph, 31, posted a $600,000 bond and returned to his home state of Arkansas, where he is awaiting a pretrial hearing on September 15. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Days after his arrest, Joseph was hit with four additional charges of second-degree endangering the welfare of a minor and second-degree false imprisonment following an investigation at his and wife Kendra Duggar’s home. Kendra, 28, was hit with the same charges.
The couple, who share four children, withdrew their not guilty pleas and each submitted a plea by order to the court last month, allowing them to enter guilty or no contest pleas. A judge signed off on the agreement, which will allow Joseph and Kendra’s child endangerment charges to be dropped in one year as long as they maintain good behavior and follow all court orders and directions of the Arkansas Department of Human Services. They must also pay fines and costs totaling $1,850.
Joy-Anna previously called Joseph’s legal troubles the “hardest time” she’s gone through.
“I am getting through all of this. I feel like every day it’s different,” she told Jinger on her podcast in June. “I think we’re all grieving in different ways, but I think it just feels so heavy.”
Jinger, meanwhile, said in March that the week of Joseph’s arrest was “hard and painful on many levels.”
“And I did not think my heart could break like it has this week,” she said on the podcast at the time. “The pain and heartbreak that we’ve had over this and just thinking of how it’s affected so many, yeah, it’s just unthinkable.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
