Duggar family members Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald will reportedly be featured in an upcoming documentary on child sexual abuse produced by TLC in the wake of their cancellation of 19 Kids and Counting.
The Duggar family reality show has been off the air since May, when oldest son Josh Duggar’s sexual molestation scandal broke in the media. Josh sexually molested five underage girls–four of whom are his sisters–when he was a teenager. The fifth girl was a family babysitter at the time of the sexual molestations.
“We spent the past month and a half in thoughtful consideration about the best way forward here,” Marjorie Kaplan, who is the group president of TLC, Animal Planet and Velocity networks, said in a statement.
TLC cancels 19 Kids and Counting but plans a documentary with two Duggar sisters: http://t.co/ts4TjGRwMA pic.twitter.com/0czvJTpszk
— ADWEEK (@Adweek) July 17, 2015
When announcing the cancellation of 19 Kids and Counting this past week, TLC also announced they will be airing a documentary in August that will featuring two members of the Duggar family, who also happen to be two of Josh Duggar’s victims. Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald will be included in the documentary, as will the sexual abuse advocacy groups RAINN and Darkness to Light.
TLC had hoped to use members of the Duggar family in a 19 Kids and Counting spinoff, but determined that the family’s name has been so irrevocably tarnished by the Josh Duggar sexual molestation scandal that they simply couldn’t consider airing such a show.
Find out which Duggar family members will receive a TLC special following 19 Kids and Counting cancellation! http://t.co/qaozRhbQhI
— OK! Magazine USA (@OKMagazine) July 16, 2015
Might the upcoming TLC documentary on child sexual abuse be the last time any members of the Duggar family appear on TV? Will Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald draw in enough viewers that TLC might reconsider creating some sort of a show featuring one or more of the Duggar family members?