“19 Kids & Counting” Stars Jill and Jessa Duggar Defend Accused Brother Josh

TLC(NEW YORK) — 19 Kids & Counting stars Jill and Jessa Duggar — the girls accused of being touched inappropriately by their brother, Josh, — come to their brother’s defense days after their parents Michelle and Jim Bob revealed the news.

In a preview of Friday’s The Kelly File, the second part of Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s sit-down with the family, Jessa says, “I do want to speak up in [Josh’s] defense against people who are calling him a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist, some people are saying. I’m like, that is so overboard and a lie, really. I mean, people get mad at me for saying that but I am like, I can say this, you know? I was one of the victims.”

Jill adds, “I think that, you know, some people, I’ve heard them say, you know, ‘you’re hypocrites’.  Well, if you go back and look at everything people that have seen in our lives, in television, you know, we’ve never claimed to be a perfect family. My parents have always actually stated, you know, we are not a perfect family.”

19 Kids and Counting, which has been pulled from the TLC schedule but not yet canceled, focused on the Duggar family’s life, including their strict rules of courting. Although Jill and Jessa both got married in the past two years, they couldn’t hold hands with their husbands until they were engaged, and didn’t kiss until their weddings.

It was last month that the report surfaced that Josh, starting at age 14, had inappropriately touched minor girls and that this incident, which was not initiallt reported to authorities, was investigated by police in 2006. Josh, now 27, then apologized, saying he had “acted inexcusably” and “sought forgiveness for those I had wronged.”

The first part of the Duggar interview, which aired Wednesday night, was watched by 3.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched cable news program that night.

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