Amy Duggar has revealed how much money she made from appearing various times back in the day on 19 Kids and Counting.
And it won’t take anyone very long do to the math.
On the latest episode of The Viall Files, the niece of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar said plainly that she made “nada” from her time on television.
She knows who to blame for that zero in her bank account column, too.
“My uncle, he told all of us that 19 Kids and Counting was a ministry — and that we were on the show to shine a light in the darkness, to be a part of this ministry and that God has called us to this,” Amy told listeners of Jim Bob, emphasizing there was no compensation for the kids involved.
The author of a new memoir titled Holy Disruptor: Shattering the Shiny Facade by Getting Louder with the Truth, Amy said she “signed a contract blindly,” estimating that the series made her family over $6 million during its run.
Giving reluctant credit to Jim Bob, Amy added:
“He’s very smart, he really is. He’s a businessman and he knows how to do it.”
That’s one way to put it. Another way to put it would be that Jim Bob is selfish and dishonest and continues to spend money his children earned.
In general, Amy is not the first Duggar to accuse Jim Bob of withholding pay.
The patriarch’s daughter Jill Duggar Dillard — who starred in 19 Kids and Counting, as well as its spinoff Counting On — has made the same allegations.
“I never received any payout — no check, no cash, no nothing,” Jill said in the 2023 docuseries Shiny, Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. “For seven and a half years of my adult life, I was never paid.”
She and husband Derick walked away from Counting On in 2017, four years before the show was canceled.
“That’s when we got an attorney involved and finally recovered some of the money,” Jill said in a 2020 YouTube vlog. “It was a process.”
In her aforementioned book, Amy admits that she was once close to cousin Josh Duggar... who is currently serving time in federal prison after having been convicted on child pornography charges.
The book doesn’t come out until October 14, but Amy has been making the media rounds of late in promotion for it.
“I think the entire book will drop jaws. No one knows the things that I was struggling with,” she recently told People Magazine, for example.
She added in this same interview:
“I hope this book brings closure as to why things kind of went the way they went for me. I hope it does connect the dots for those that did watch the show. And, I hope also that it feels like a hug for those that have experienced abuse in their lives.”