It’s been over a month since TLC pulled 19 Kids And Counting from its schedule after reports surfaced that one of the 19 kids—Josh Duggar—had molested several girls (including a few of his sisters) when he was a teenager. Shockingly/hilariously/depressingly, TLC still hasn’t officially canceled 19 Kids And Counting, though, which is especially surprising in light of how quickly NBC was willing to drop the hot potato that is Donald Trump. This just goes to show you the difference in priorities between a regular network like NBC and a basic cable channel like TLC. One can’t associate itself with a dopey racist, and the other hopes we’ll all forget about the family that tried to cover up child abuse.
So, anyway, Josh Duggar—who is now 27—never faced criminal charges for abusing these girls because the police didn’t find out about it until the statute of limitations had already run out. (Imagine that.) However, he might be getting taken to court soon anyway: According to In Touch, one of his victims who is not a family member is preparing to file a civil suit against Duggar, and the magazine makes it sound like this could end up being a bloodbath. The members of the Duggar family who knew about this before it was made public will almost certainly have to testify, which means they’ll have no choice but to reveal not only what they knew and when they knew it, but also why it took so long for them to do anything, what they did—or didn’t do—after finding out about the molestation, and who else knew about it and also didn’t do anything.
The family probably wouldn’t be in danger of facing any criminal charges based on what they might say in court—thanks to the convenience of that aforementioned statute of limitations—but we imagine anything that might come out is definitely not going to look good for the Duggars. This will be especially bad for TLC, which is really banking on the public continuing to accept that this is a good family full of good people. Of course, the Duggars could end up scraping together a big settlement of some kind to stop this from ever going to court, but TLC might still have to find another seemingly wholesome family we can gawk at for a while. Then the cycle can continue.