By Holly Rasmussen
News that Josh Duggar from TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting committed sexual abuse broke earlier this week (read all about that here and here), and plenty of people are mad, including June Shannon the recently fired star of TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
As you may remember, ‘Here Comes Honey Boo Boo’ was canceled last year after it came out that June was spending time with the man convicted of molesting her older daughter, Anna Caldwell. Almost immediately after that scandal broke, TLC canceled ‘Honey Boo Boo.’
Now June is calling on TLC to do the same to ’19 Kids and Counting.’ She’s angry that the network allowed a’19 Kids’ marathon to air, even after Josh publicly admitted what happened.
This morning, June threatened the network (via a TMZ interview) with a lawsuit if ’19 Kids’ wasn’t canceled. She told the site that she lost a ton of money when TLC canceled her show and feels that the Duggars should suffer the same fate.
“June says she never molested anyone and [convicted molest Mark] McDaniel wasn’t ever on her show, yet Josh Duggar is a central figure on the TLC show and admitted to molesting some of his sisters, who are also on the show,” TMZ wrote. “What’s more, she believes Jim Bob and Michelle covered up their son’s misdeeds.
Yesterday, Josh publicly confirmed a report by In Touch Weekly that contained police reports that revealed the abuse. The reports stated that in 2002 and 2003 a then 14-15 year old Josh, touched four of his young sisters and one other young girl on the breasts and vaginas repeatedly. Most of these attacks happened while the girls were sleeping.
The Ashley reached out to a TLC rep this morning, who told her the network still had “no comment” on whether or not the show will be canceled, or if Josh will be kicked off.
The network, did, however, issue a statement this afternoon that confirmed that all reruns of ’19 Kids and Counting’ have been pulled from airing for the time being.
“Effective immediately, TLC has pulled all episodes of ’19 Kids and Counting’ currently from the air,” the statement read. “We are deeply saddened and troubled by this heartbreaking situation, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family and victims at this difficult time.”
This does not mean the show has been permanently canceled, however. It is one of the network’s highest-rated shows. However, if it does remain on the air, it will have less advertisers. This morning, a rep for advertiser General Mills told TMZ that they have blacklisted the show and removed it from their company’s advertising list.
There are also numerous petitions started to get TLC to cancel the show. We don’t know the fate of the show as of right now, but with advertisers already beginning to pull their ads off the show, it is not looking good.
(Photos: TLC)
23 Responses
I agree with juneZilla
Any show would just put more money in JB and M pocket. They let a known to them sex offender of children in their home for over 6 years and send their girls off to his house to babysit. They made their home more of a prison with no school and after the facts came out to them they stopped going to church. Then they went on TV to present their wonder lifestyle not to protect their children’s hearts but to keep secret sex abuse. In mama June’s case she wasn’t a state rep with connections to bury the situation. Her child was an adult and couldn’t hide the report of how she failed to protect her daughter. That is why the Duggars had their kid destroy the court order. If wasn’t to protect her privacy or the offenders privacy cause he was a minor. It was to cover up the fact they covered it and that nothing was done regarding the police or CPS until it was too late. You really think if they caught Josh in the wrong part of the house post TLC show they would have called the cops complaining their minor child had been abused? These people are liars. These people are dangerous. No wonder Jillls buddy group spends so much time at her house. Now we know why the family’s control over the children extended into adulthood. The buddy system and not letting the girls go to college or even talk on the phone without their being present. Shame on them. Forget Josh what the parents did was worse. They should not profit off it anymore. All the girls do is be the mouthpiece for their dating rules and family organization. Who wants anything from these folks? The kids don’t have any shoe money. Again the parents disregard their kids for their own fame, greed.
Like you have any room to talk June..you were messing around with your kids pedophile ! And with Josh ,what pisses me off the Most is he didn’t get punished at All!! Smh ..
I never thought I’d agree with Mama June, but I do. This show needs to be cancelled right now!
I also never thought I would agree with Mamma June, but this time she is right. TLC is only thinking of money. Money and not the girls, one of whom was four or five when this happened and they were made to “forgive”. Wow. How could TLC not have known! Impossible.
If you are not a beliver you should just back off. If you dont know how forginess works back off. None of you are God
Forgiveness is for the victims to help them heal. It does not absolve a crime. It does not erase the crime. It does not negate the crime. Religion and law are two seperate entities. And while, religiously speaking, he may be forgiven, he still committed a crime against children.
Exactly.
How does one forgive a molester when they have hidden this? There was no counselling, other than sending Josh to a family friend who is a renovator and making the little girls forgive! What happened to professional counselling? Why did they go to a police officer who did not report it and is now in prison for child porn. Why did JimBob refuse to let authorities speak to his son and he lawyered up and at least two lawyers would not take the case. A believer does not cover up a serious issue like this. Would you do that to your family, have a little girl age 4 or 5 forgive and that’s it? Abuse causes life long problems, anyone else in the world would have been charged and convicted! They only thought of money. Never do they talk about the girls.
Shut up idiot! Think about how you would feel if your Own brother was touching you! smh
Forgiveness does not mean that someone faces no consequence for a serious crime, especially types of criminals who are at risk of repeating it without intervention.
What surprises me the most is that this is just now coming to light. While obtaining my Masters Degree I wrote a paper on the Quiverful religion, the Duggars being the catalyst to the topic. When googling them the story was out in 2009! It was referred to as the “sin in the camp” scandal and was reported one of the reasons Jim Bob lost his political election that year. How did it take 6 years for the media to follow up on this?
My only guess would be that without the actual police documentation, which was leaked this week, it was reported but only rumored. Therefore huge publications didn’t want to risk slander or libel by publishing this story, hence it wasn’t picked up until the actual report came to light. That, and sometimes things just don’t go viral despite that they have all of the makings of doing so.
yeah those of us that read duggar message boards have known about this forever, down to the oprah details. however the comments originated from a very unreliable source so people were hesitant to attribute them as being true. it’s crazy because they were all spot on. like even the number of victims in the police report
I don’t know if Hades has frozen over, or if this is a case of “a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut”, but Mama June is absolutely correct.
The molester in question in her situation was never on this show and her show was (rightly I think) cancelled faster than you can say “How dare you!”, but TLC is going to not cancel the show starring a molester and his 2 accessories-after-the-fact (aka parents)?
I wouldn’t be surprised if TLC turns this into a “very special episode”, though I’m curious how they are going to explain this one away.
TLC will lose all credibility if they don’t cancel it! In my opinion, harboring a child molester is way worse than meeting up with one.
If they don’t cancel it, I really hope the viewers will boycott it.
Um….harboring?? Not sure how that word applies to this situation.
I am so glad that TLC decided to pull this show. As a victim of sexual assault (while I was sleeping, just like these girls), I have a huge and newfound respect for them. The type of PTSD that comes from this (or at least for me) is sleep paralysis, nightmares, and tactile hallucinations. That means I literally have tactile (feeling) hallucinations while I’m sleeping…it feels like the whole thing is happening all over again. And it takes so much power and effort to wake up. It’s like an elephant is sitting on your chest.
I don’t know if these ladies are similarly haunted, but either way, they really do seem like sweet girls. Josh has always given off a creepy vibe. Jessa, Jill, Jinger and Jana do seem like they are doing okay. I hope they continue to get the help they need.
They weren’t all sleeping when he assaulted them. Apparently, one of the girls was sitting in his lap having a book read to her when he went under her dress and molested her.
Yes and one was doing laundry and got cornered. Does the family research counsel actually research the impact of pedohelia on 5 year old children? And yes, he’s a pedo. Example one: sexually assaulting a 5 year old baby that may not even know how to read.
I, too, was assaulted in my sleep. I can’t imagine sharing the same roof with the creep… Never feeling safe. It’s hard enough to heal on your own but when you live in a rape room AKA your own bedroom, I can’t imagine it. It makes me sick.
I don’t watch “19 kids” often at all, but a spinoff with the older girls would have the rest of my schedule worked around it. Jana discovering unknown talents and interests when not the mother of twelve, Jinger going to art school and casually holding hands with guys she’s just met-Joy wearing pants, even. This could get juicy. 😉
Haha. Yeah, I’m curious about this one myself. It seems unreasonable that ALL Duggars will be off TV for the REST of time. IDK how they’ll swing it, but I have the feeling they’re pulling the show for now and waiting for the frenzy to die down before revamping it in some form or another. There’s so many of them and they were the highest rated show…there’s no way some people at TLC aren’t in some think tank figuring out a safe spin off potential…