Josh Duggar Admits to Cheating on Wife Anna: 'I Have Been the Biggest Hypocrite Ever'
Over the years, Josh Duggar — admitted child molester and, now, adulterer — in his leadership position at the Family Research Council has maintained that same-sex marriage is evil and that divorce is a sin punishable by a life in hell. Welp! Here's what crow tastes like, Joshie.
After the Ashley Madison hacking, Gawker discovered that Duggar had maintained not one, but two accounts on the dating website for people looking to have covert affairs. On Wednesday, Duggar issued a statement apologizing (for the second time this year!) for his hypocrisy. (UPDATE: After initially posting one apology, the statement was pulled from his mom Michelle's blog and a new, shorter one appeared in its place.)
"I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife," Duggar — who has four children with his wife, Anna — wrote in a statement. "I am so ashamed of the double life that I have been living and am grieved for the hurt, pain and disgrace my sin has caused my wife and family, and most of all Jesus and all those who profess faith in Him."
In a new, shorter apology, Duggar removes all references to pornography and also corrects the abhorrent use of passive voice in the original.
In its report, Gawker found an Ashley Madison account registered to Duggar's credit card, which listed his sexual interests as, among others, "conventional sex," "someone who can teach me," "kissing," and "cuddling & hugging." This guy sounds like a real tiger in between the sheets. After Duggar's Ashley Madison account was exposed, online sleuths also found an OKCupid profile that appears to have belonged to Duggar — it surfaced when you searched his Ashley Madison email handle "joesmithsonnwa" — but has since been deactivated.
This is now the second time this summer Duggar has had to publicly admit to practicing the exact opposite of what he preaches. In May, Duggar admitted to having molested several underage girls, including two of his sisters, when he was a teenager. Duggar acknowledges that this has been a rough year to be Josh Duggar in his statement.
"I brought hurt and a reproach to my family, close friends and the fans of our show with my actions that happened when I was 14-15 years old, and now I have re-broken their trust," Duggar wrote. "The last few years, while publicly stating I was fighting against immorality in our country, I was hiding my own personal failings."
After Duggar's history of molestation came out, he resigned from his position at the Family Research Council, which, on its own website, calls adultery an "immoral" sin on the same level as homosexuality. Shortly afterward, TLC canceled 19 Kids and Counting, the reality show about Duggar's family.
Ironically, this week's cover of People (which went to press before the latest scandal broke) features Jill and Jessa Duggar, two of Josh's victims, on the cover. In the story a source says the family "truly felt people would understand and eventually be okay with" his history of molestation. We wonder how they think we're supposed to feel now.