The Duggar Family’s Scandals: From 19 Kids and Counting’s Cancellation to Josh’s Child Porn Conviction

The Duggars continue to fascinate TLC viewers, and the famous family’s most recent drama is making waves online. The reality brood has suffered several scandals in recent years, the most serious of which have involved Josh Duggar.

But not all scandals are created equal, and some have been a lot sillier. Only the Duggars would consider it scandalous for young women to wear pants, for example, but their brand of modesty is a very conservative one. Keep scrolling to read all the things the Duggars would probably prefer you didn’t know.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

1. Let’s begin with the Josh Duggar scandal that rocked the world.

In 2015, In Touch obtained a Washington County Sheriff’s Office report regarding eldest son Josh admitting to multiple acts of sexual molestation during his teen years, including some perpetrated on his own sisters.

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2. And don’t forget how Jim Bob Duggar responded to Josh’s misdeeds.

The story gets worse from there, unfortunately. Duggar patriarch Jim Bob Duggar waited more than a year to report Josh’s indiscretions to the local authorities, and he blocked them from interviewing the teen when they launched a felony investigation in 2006.

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3. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar even defended their son’s actions to Megyn Kelly.

And after the news broke, Jim Bob and wife Michelle Duggar actually got defensive about their eldest son in an interview with Megyn Kelly. “Looking back, we did the best we could under the circumstances,” Jim Bob told the then-Fox News host. “He was still a kid. He was still a juvenile. He wasn’t an adult. This was not rape or anything like that. This was touching someone over their clothes.” (Even Jill and Jessa Duggar defended Josh, saying it’s a “lie” that Josh is a child molester.)

(Photo Credit: Instagram)

4. On their TLC show, Jill and Jessa Duggar didn’t tell the whole truth about their “healing process.”

Following that Duggar bombshell, TLC canceled 19 Kids & Counting and debuted a new docu-series, Jill & Jessa: Counting On, focusing on some of the more law-abiding Duggar kids. It could have been a golden opportunity for the famous family to address their dark past directly, but instead, we caught them lying about their “healing process.”

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5. Duggar family tutor Tabitha Paine married a man convicted of sexual assault.

The Duggars were once again implicated in a sex scandal when news broke that their family friend Timothy Robertson — the now-husband of Tabitha Paine, a woman who lived with the family as a tutor — was once convicted of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree for having non-consensual sex with a woman. He pled guilty to the crime but insisted to In Touch he was “falsely accused.”

(Photo Credit: Instagram)

6. Joy-Anna and Austin Forsyth (maybe) had sex before their wedding.

Pre-marital sex isn’t a no-no for most people these days, but it is for the Duggars. So imagine our surprise when we heard that Joy-Anna Duggar and then-fiancé Austin Forsyth had been having sex since 2016 and had even weathered a pregnancy scare. (Granted, that news has never been confirmed, so take it with a grain of salt).

(Photo Credit: Instagram)

7. “Rebel” Jinger Duggar started wearing pants and shorts. The horror!

Speaking of Duggar rule-breaking, Jinger Duggar broke with family tradition when she started wearing pants and shorts instead of the de rigueur skirts. (And don’t even get us started on her sleeveless dresses. Sacré bleu!) She even inspired some of her sisters and sisters-in-law to follow in her footsteps.

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8. Michelle Duggar went against her own rules and was caught in pants instead of a skirt.

A little teenage rebellion is to be expected, but we were floored when Michelle joined her daughter and traded her skirts for pants. Of course, her display of relative immodesty wasn’t enough for some people, especially because she and Jim Bob were vacationing on the beaches of Hawaii at the time. “Those clothes are just going to be hot and heavy and miserable,” one critic said.

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9. Jana Duggar’s rumored boyfriend didn’t follow Duggar courtship rituals and was more liberal than her family … like that’s hard?

Despite that pants-wearing, Michelle is probably still strict when it comes to her courtship rules. So we’re guessing she wasn’t too hot on Caleb Williams, who was rumored to be courting Jana Duggar at one point, since he is “somewhat more liberal” than the Duggars and doesn’t “really” follow the courtship rituals, according to a Radar Online. Later on, Caleb caused even more scandal when the news broke that he’d been arrested for sexual assault in December 2018. Though he pleaded not guilty, he hasn’t been seen with the famous family since.

(Photo Credit: Instagram)

10. The Duggar’s family home was allegedly raided by Homeland Security Investigations.

By November 2019, the family had a new investigation on their hands. Reports indicated that Homeland Security Investigations were “present [at the Duggar home] pursuant to an ongoing federal criminal investigation.” Additionally, the HSI didn’t dispute allegations that one of Josh’s businesses had also been raided.

HSI had the legal authority to investigate financial crimes, money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, commercial fraud and intellectual property theft, cyber crimes, document and benefit fraud. The Duggars have since denied that any raid took place.

(Photo Credit: Courtesy of Joy-Anna Duggar/Instagram)

11. Joy’s husband Austin was sued for fraud regarding a house he “flipped.”

Austin was sued by a couple who purchased a home he renovated and flipped, In Touch confirmed on December 2, 2019. According to legal documents, the plaintiffs accused the Duggar in-law of lying about getting a permit for a septic tank on the house they purchased from him in June 2018. After they moved in that August, the couple claimed they noticed “their yard was saturated on the driest of days and that an unmistakable foul odor of human waste emanated from their yard.”

The lawsuit alleged the county requires all properties sold with a septic system to have a certificate or permit from the Health Department before being sold, and one was not obtained for the property. Austin — the defendant in this case, and someone known for doing this sort of house flipping work — said the work was done with “proper permits,” but the suit alleged that was not true. He denied most of the allegations.

In February 2020, The Sun reported the buyers requested a partial summary judgment for fraud in order to be given compensation for one of the claims. Austin responded, asking the court to deny their request for him to pay up, which an Arkansas judge did on December 18. While Austin is off the hook for now, he may still be ordered to pay up when the case goes to trial, as it is still ongoing. A trial date has not been set. 

(Photo credit: Courtesy of Anna Duggar/Instagram)

12. Josh Duggar was arrested and held without bond for unknown charges.

In Touch confirmed Josh was arrested on April 29, 2021, and taken into police custody in Arkansas. At the time of publication, the soon-to-be dad of seven was being held in a detention center without bond. TMZ was the first to report news of his arrest and the charges against him have yet to be revealed.

At his court hearing the following day, Josh entered a not guilty plea to child porn charges.

(Photo Credit: Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

13. Josh Duggar was found guilty by a federal jury of receiving and possession of child pornography.

Josh went on trial on November 30, 2021, in Washington County, Arkansas, in his child pornography case. Prosecutors claimed that some of the images found in Josh’s work computer showed minors under the age of 12. After just under seven hours of deliberation, a federal jury on December 9 convicted the former reality star on one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. At sentencing, he will face up to 40 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. 

(Photo credit: Courtesy of Jana Duggar/Instagram)

14. Jana Duggar charged with endangering the welfare of a minor.

The eldest Duggar daughter’s most high-profile scandal had previously been her love of wearing pants. That was until it was revealed on December 10, 2021, that Jana had pleaded not guilty on September 23 to a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a minor, following an incident on September 9 for which she was cited. Jana does not have children of her own and lives with her parents at their family compound in Tontitown, Arkansas. Her next hearing in the case is set for January 10, 2022.