Amy Duggar has offered to help Anna Duggar, the wife of Josh Duggar (who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for child pornography charges), several times with no response back, she revealed to PEOPLE magazine. “With Anna, I have tried. I have sent text messages, I have sent emails. I’ve tried, I’ve tried. I don’t know if her phone’s being monitored. I don’t know if she’s turned it off [and] she’s gotten a new one. I’ve tried on Instagram, I’ve tried on Twitter. She wants nothing to do with it at all, and that’s her decision,” Amy (whose marital last name is King) told the magazine in an interview published on Monday June 5.
“I understand she has a lot of kids, and I understand that she’s in a very broken place, I’m sure. I don’t want to speak for her. I’m sure that is just heartbreaking, but I also don’t necessarily think she sees it yet,” Amy, 36, added. “I think it’s going to take a really long time. And if she ever does reach out, I am here for her.” Anna, 34, and Josh, 35, have seven kids, the last of which was born about two weeks before Josh’s child sex abuse trial. Josh and Anna’s seven kids are all under the age of 13, with the eldest being born in 2011.
As fans know, Josh has been at the center of controversy over the last few years for being found guilty on two charges of knowingly receiving and possessing images of child pornography. Josh began his 12-year prison sentence in June 2022. Furthermore, in 2015, he admitted to molesting several girls when he was a teen, with four of them being his sisters, including Jill and Jessa. He also confessed to cheating on his wife.
Amy, who often appeared on 19 Kids and Counting with her cousins, further revealed that she and her husband, Dillon, were even willing to offer Anna and her kids a place to stay as Josh’s legal troubles ensued. “My husband and I actually were talking when all this first came out, and I said, ‘Honey, we have room to welcome all of those kids and Anna into our home. We have bunk beds, we could do something really cool,'” she remembered. “And he was like, ‘You’re right.’ He was like, ‘We could.’ He was like, ‘Let’s reach out and see what we can do.'”
She continued, “I offered it, and that’s really all I can do is just hope and pray that she opens her eyes. That’s all you can do. Honestly, it sucks. It just sucks because I want to be there and I want to help, and it doesn’t have to involve cameras or fame or anything. It’s just family reaching out to family. Unfortunately, she doesn’t see it.”
Amy has been quite outspoken about her family over the years and even publicly admitted she thinks Josh should have gotten a heavier prison sentence. “Twelve and a half years isn’t enough,” Amy told Celebuzz! in a May 2022 statement. “But I hope that every single second he’s there feels like an eternity.”
Amy also partook in Amazon’s new docuseries, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, which explores the Duggar family’s life behind TLC cameras and the religious organization they follow, Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). In the doc, Amy claimed that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar sent Josh to an IBLP camp for “troubled boys” after they learned he had inappropriately touched his sisters. She said Josh’s whereabouts were kept on the down and his parents told people he was “helping families build homes.” She also accused Jim Bob and Michelle, her uncle and aunt, of using physical punishment to enforce obedience in her kids.