Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of the TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting sat down with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly for an interview that aired Wednesday night to discuss, for the first time, the sexual misconduct committed in their home by their son when he was a teenager more than a decade ago. The couple confirmed their oldest son, Josh Duggar, had improperly touched four of his younger sisters on separate occasions, as well as a separate instance involving a babysitter.
The interview comes nearly two weeks after the tabloid inTouch Weekly published a redacted Arkansas police report outlining multiple cases of child molestation by the now 27-year-old Josh Duggar when he was a teenager. One of the instances of sexual molestation was with a sister who was reportedly five years old at the time.
Criticism has been leveled at the Duggar parents for to not taking more definitive action against their teenage son when they learned of the instances of sexual misconduct. “We did the best we could under the circumstances,” Jim Bob Duggar told Kelly.
In the cautious interview, the couple did little more than confirming the general timeline that was contained in the police report and hit back against the leak of the sealed police file. Despite Kelly’s pushing to get at their state-of-mind then, and now, Jim Bob and Michelle largely stuck to the line that they family had dealt with the issue and moved on. They emphasized that all involved had received professional counseling.
