Amy Duggar says cousin Jana is under her parents’ “control.”
Amy Duggar hasn’t been afraid to share her thoughts about auntie Michelle and uncle Jim Bob Duggar – and now she talks about her relationship with cousin Jane Duggar.
“I really hope to the good God above that she is happy and thriving and working through whatever she’s been through, but I have no contact with her,” Amy, 36, revealed in a Vanity purse interview published on Wednesday, June 28, noting that 33-year-old Jana still lives on her parents’ property in Arkansas.
“Anyone who lives at home with someone in the IBLP, you are under their control, so I don’t know if they are necessarily allowed to [contact me]Amy added, referring to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, the fundamentalist Christian movement that Jim Bob, 57, and Michelle, 56, join.
Jana is the eldest daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle, who rose to fame on the TLC series 19 kids and counting. The family spin-off show, Count onwas canceled after the couple’s eldest son, Joshwas arrested in early 2021 on child pornography charges. Josh, 35, was found guilty of two counts of receiving and possessing child pornography in December of that year and was later sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
Amy and some of her relatives have since denounced their upbringing, most recently in Prime Videos Shiny happy people. Jana didn’t participate, but Amy and cousin Jill Duggar spoke out against IBLP in the docuseries, while Jinger Duggar opened up about her experience in the January memoir Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Untangling Faith and Fear.
“[My upbringing] was built on fear, manipulation, control and superstition, so all those things combined into how hard it is for kids to leave or adults to leave — everyone, really,” Jinger, 29, told Exclusive Us weekly before her book comes out. “Once you have heard the teachings, you are not meant to deviate from them.”
Amy, for her part, said the family’s treatment of Josh after his arrest was the “last straw” for her. “I can’t imagine protecting a predator,” she said Vanity purse. “I think that’s the lowest of the low, [and] there is no way back.”
After Shiny happy people‘s release, Jim Bob and Michelle slammed the series, calling it “sad” in a statement shared via their website. “Like other families, ours has experienced life’s joys and heartbreaks, only in a very public form,” the couple wrote earlier this month. “This ‘documentary’ paints so much and so much in a derogatory and sensational way, because unfortunately that’s the direction of entertainment these days.”
They continued: “We have always believed that the best chance to mend damaged relationships, or to reconcile differences, is through love in a private setting. We love every member of our family and will continue to do everything we can to be close to everyone.”
However, Amy was not impressed with their response. In a TikTok video shared days later, she berated Jim Bob for allegedly protecting Josh after he was accused of molesting several underage girls in 2015 when he was a teenager. His sisters Jill and Jessa were later identified as two of the victims.
“If you’re not going to protect those beautiful daughters from a predator that lived in your house and you knew about it, and you’re going to sweep it under the rug and your mindset is kind of to just brush it off and to hide it and to lie “Not only do I not respect you anymore, but I don’t want to give you the right to know my child,” Amy said in her upload. “Because I will protect my child at all costs.”
Years after the 2015 scandal, Jim Bob claimed he couldn’t remember the details of Josh’s alleged admission to touching the victims. “We were shocked that this had happened, but we were thankful that he came out and told us,” he said in November 2021 while testifying on behalf of Josh in his child pornography trial.