Megyn Kelly’s 2015 Interview With Jill And Jessa Duggar Has Not Aged Well

When the Duggar family was on reality TV, they didn’t often give interviews. When they did, it was something of a sensationalized walkthrough of their large family and their unconventional habits.

Instead of chatting with interviewers nonstop, the Duggars preferred to use their show’s TV footage as their evangelism, claiming that they only participated in reality TV (while not permitting their family to watch television at all) to spread religious messages.

But one interview with Jessa and Jill Duggar after the first allegations against their brother came to light might have been one of their slipups.

Josh Duggar’s Criminal Actions Ruined The Family’s Reality TV Run

Once headlines began coming out about Josh Duggar’s at the time ‘alleged’ misdeeds, the family decided it was time to speak up. At first, they attempted to smooth over the allegations against Josh; in 2015, the only news that had come out was that of Josh inappropriately touching his younger siblings and other young victims when he was a teen.

Related: After Years Of Not Giving His Kids Their TLC Money, Jim Bob Duggar Offered Them $10 An Hour

It wasn’t until 2019 that Josh Duggar was formally investigated as a sex offender and, ultimately, put behind bars in a Texas prison in 2021. With a decade-plus sentence ahead of him, it was finally clear to many that Josh had been accurately convicted—and the rest of the Duggars had a lot of explaining to do.

Specifically, an earlier interview with Jill and Jessa that aimed to clear Josh’s name did not age well at all.

Megyn Kelly Interviewed Jill And Jessa Duggar Amid The 2015 Headlines About Josh Duggar

In 2015, Megyn Kelly had Jill Dillard and Jessa Seewald on her show The Kelly File on Fox News. The two appeared on their own, speaking directly with Megyn, while their parents appeared to have been interviewed separately (or prior to their daughters).

When asked why they were coming forward as victims, the girls had interesting responses. Megyn questioned whether it felt odd to the girls to label themselves as victims, to which Jill responded that they wished it hadn’t come out that way, and that it wouldn’t have been their first choice to publicly dispel myths about their family.

Jill specifically said, “Nobody asked us to do this. Jessa and I were talking and we’re like oh my goodness, most of the stuff out there is lies, it’s not true.” Jill noted that “for truth’s sake,” they wanted to come out and set the record straight.

They also stated that before Josh confessed—telling their parents what he had done—none of the victims knew what had happened to them. Later, after Jim Bob and Michelle told their daughters what had apparently happened to them (while they were fully clothed and sleeping, according to Jill), Josh asked his sisters for forgiveness.

Related: This Proves Anna Duggar Never Plans To Accept Help, Leave The Duggar Family After Josh’s Prison Sentence

Jill said she chose to forgive him but wasn’t forced to by her family. Megyn asked the girls how they felt and whether they fought with Josh prior to him being sent away (which apparently happened shortly after the girls were told what had happened).

Although Jill spoke about how Josh had destroyed his family’s trust, Jim Bob counseled the girls on forgiving him but not trusting him. They were apparently instructed to forgive Josh, but to set boundaries because he had broken that trust.

Jill also said that their parents put locks on the kids’ bedroom doors (the girls slept in a dorm-style room separate from the boys’ shared room), didn’t permit any of the kids to be alone with Josh any longer, and banned them from playing hide and seek.

Jessa, for her part, specifically said that she wanted to defend her brother against people who called him a “child molester or a pedophile or a rapist,” saying that those descriptors were “so overboard and a lie, really.”

Unfortunately for the Duggar girls, those would apparently turn out to be truths later on.

Jill And Jessa Have Since Spoken Out Against Their Brother (And Parents)

It’s still not clear whether Jill and Jessa were somehow convinced by their parents to give an interview defending their brother, but Jill has specifically spoken out after apparently cutting ties with her family, even appearing in the documentary Shiny Happy People to criticize the way she was raised.

There was even some speculation that Jill was estranged from her parents for quite some time before the documentary, possibly because of how they handled the long-ago abuse allegations.

Despite her full-on support of both Josh and her parents (she claimed that investigators complimented Jim Bob and Michelle for their proactiveness in protecting the kids) previously, Jill seemed to have changed her tune in later years.

Related: After All Their Scandals, The Duggar Family Might Not Attend Church Anymore

The family even posted an announcement against the docuseries after Jill appeared on it, indicating that they weren’t happy with her decision to speak out.

For her part, Jessa has been far less vocal about the charges against her brother and the entire situation. Unlike Jinger and Jill, Jessa apparently hasn’t written a book about her life, nor does she seem to have any plans to.