More revelations are emerging from Jill Duggar Dillard’s memoir “Counting the Cost,” released today, Sept. 12. As ChurchLeaders has reported, the former reality TV star has a fractured relationship with her father, Jim Bob Duggar, patriarch of the “19 Kids and Counting” family.
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In the book, Dillard, 32, describes a tense encounter with her father that almost became physical. She expresses disgust about her parents’ decision to “protect” her oldest brother, Josh Duggar, who was convicted of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse images. Dillard also is speaking out against the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), the conservative Christian organization her parents belong to, calling it a “cult” driven by fear.
Other bombshells from the memoir include financial disagreements and conflicts about filming expectations. Dillard, the fourth Duggar sibling, co-authored the memoir with her husband, Derick Dillard. The couple, married since 2014, have three sons.
Jill Duggar Dillard: Dad Treats Me ‘Worse Than…My Pedophile Brother’
In an exclusive memoir excerpt published by People magazine, Dillard describes a mediation session with her husband and parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. Dillard said her parents were hurt by communications she had sent them, including a text to her dad that referenced his alleged verbal abuse.
“You’re not going to apologize? Really?” Jim Bob reportedly asked his daughter, who became emotional. “You know why you’re crying, don’t you?” he then said. “Your conscience is talking to you.” Dillard said her father was “yelling, stabbing a finger at me, standing right over me.”
In response, she told him, “You want to know why I’m crying? It’s that you think I’m some kind of horrible person just because I wear pants and have a nose ring…I’m evolving and changing…but you can’t see it. You treat me like I’m a prodigal who’s turned her back on you. You treat me worse than you treat my pedophile brother.”
The memoir also recounts how Dillard “felt sick to my core” about her parents’ efforts to “guard Josh’s privacy and keep him from being publicly humiliated” when they learned he had been molesting girls, including her and three of her sisters. Although Josh Duggar admitted to his father that he had touched girls inappropriately, Jim Bob didn’t alert authorities until the statute of limitations had run out.
