“Well we know where Joshy got it from!”
Trigger Warning: This story contains mention of physical violence.
Jill Duggar Dillard says she only recently found out what her grandfather was really like.
The former Counting On star recently did an Instagram Live with her cousin Amy Duggar— whose book Holy Disruptor was released last week— and the two discussed much of what Amy wrote about, including her exposure of some of their grandfather Jimmy Lee Duggar‘s shocking secrets. During the Live, Jill (who was joined on the Live by her husband Derick Dillard and Amy’s husband Dillion King) expressed how surprised she was to learn about some of the things her grandpa allegedly did.
“[The book is] definitely is deep,” Jill said. “Like, it goes into a lot of aspects [of the Duggar family]. It tells the whole truth and the reality of a lot of situations that our family lived, you know? Everyone is entitled to share their own story, whether we agree with them or not…it’s definitely a journey that she’s been on and you can tell that through her book… [The book] was very insightful. We learned more about our family history than we knew.”
Derick— who read most of the book before Jill did— stated during the Live that he told Jill “Some things about her grandfather she didn’t know.”
“He’s like, ‘Did you know this and that and the other about Grandpa Duggar?’” Jill said, regarding the father of her dad, Jim Bob Duggar. My dad’s dad? And I’m like, ‘No! Tell me more!’ and he’s like, ‘I’m literally telling you more about your grandfather than you knew.’”
“We learned more about our family history than we knew, we had inklings of things [that Grandpa Duggar had done],” Jill added.
Jimmy Lee and Mary Duggar with a young Deanna and Jim Bob…
Amy revealed in her book that Jimmy Lee was a “predator” whom she was not allowed to be alone with. She also claimed that her grandfather nearly “murdered” her mom, Deanna, after finding out Deanna wanted to move in with her boyfriend.
“He grabbed her by the throat, carried her from the kitchen to his bed, and jumped on top of her,” Amy wrote of the violent incident. “He wrapped his hands around her neck, lay on top of her so she was unable to move, and started strangling her.… He almost succeeded in murdering my mother.”
Amy added that it was actually Jim Bob who “saved her life that day” by intervening between Deanna and Jimmy Lee.
The book also goes into detail about how her mother and grandmother Mary (who died after an accident in 2019) tried to keep Amy safe after she and Deanna moved in with Mary and Jimmy Lee.
“We learned by the time we were in junior high to be very cautious around him,” Amy wrote. “I’m not sure exactly when it happened or why, but eventually there were certain boundaries put in place by my mom and my grandma. There was a shift in our family where the things we thought were funny suddenly weren’t funny anymore. Gramps had a crazy side, and we all knew it, but we didn’t fully know yet his darker side.”
During the Live, Amy and Jill discussed how their Grandma Mary tried to keep her husband’s dark side from being exposed.
“I think Grandma passed away with a lot of secrets, and that was the generation [where you] keep everything hidden and don’t talk about it,” Amy said. “Our generation is more like, ‘Let’s heal from it and discuss it.’”
They also talked about how Grandma Duggar— who was often featured on 19 Kids & Counting and ‘Counting On’— would feel about Amy exposing the Duggar Family secrets in their books.
“I think that she had to live through, honestly, a lot of crap before she passed, too,” Jill said of Mary. “I don’t think she would be super-vocal about [me writing my book Counting the Cost]….”
“I don’t think Grandma would like it,” Amy added. “Grandma and I were like best friends, almost like sisters. We were very, very close. She helped raise me. I think she’d be like ‘Amyyy!’”
“You girls need to learn to keep your traps shut!”
According to Jill, Grandma Duggar was “very supportive” of her and Derick doing mission work and even donated to their cause. However, she could be judgmental when her family members did things that she didn’t approve of.
“Despite the family drama, she wanted to have her individual relationships with people [in her family]… She could lecture people pretty well if she wanted to!” Jill said. “We knew when she was not happy with us or something but I didn’t really get into any scuffles with her. I was always like, ‘What’s the point? I’m not going to win her over on stuff.’
“Obviously she kept a lot of things quiet for a very long time,” Jill continued. “Because she didn’t want to deal with it. So I think [her reaction to our tell-all books] would have been very similar. She would have not have wanted everything to be talked about at that time.”
Fans of “19 Kids & Counting” may remember Jimmy Lee Duggar, as he was featured on early episodes of the show. During one memorable episode that aired in 2009, Grandpa Duggar was wheeled out to celebrate his birthday (during an ice storm). He was barely conscious but was basically propped up on a desk chair so the Duggars could sing happy birthday to him.
The last appearance of Grandpa Duggar on the show…
He died from brain cancer days after the episode was filmed in February 2009.
You can watch Amy and Jill’s Live below.
RELATED STORY: Amy Duggar Recalls the Moment She Learned Her Grandfather Jimmy Lee Duggar– Father of Jim Bob Duggar– Was a “Predator”
(Photos: TLC; Instagram; Facebook)
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