"Done with the secrets": Jill Duggar's new memoir is lifting the lid on her family's manipulation.

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar polarised viewers with seven seasons of their reality series 19 Kids and Counting. 

The deeply religious Baptists portrayed themselves as a tight-knit, conservative family unit, but as time wore on, their TV personas came undone.

Now, one of their 19 children, Jill Duggar Dillard, along with her husband Derick Dillard, have announced their tell-all memoir, which will detail allegations of abhorrent sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her brother Josh, who’s currently serving a 12-and-a-half-year sentence for possessing and receiving child pornography. He has not faced a criminal trial for the allegations that he sexually assaulted his sisters. 

The book, which is due to be released in January 2024, also details allegations that Jill's parents forced her to cover up the sexual abuse, for the sake of the reality TV series' survival. 

Watch: Josh Duggar Responds to Sexual Abuse Claims. Post continues after video.

“Derick and I would like to announce that we have written a book, “COUNTING THE COST,” which details our painful journey as part of the reality-show-filming Duggar family,” Jill shared on Instagram.

“The challenges we have faced, including lack of respect for boundaries, greed, manipulation, and betrayal, are not that much different than what many people in our audience have faced.

“However, 15+ years of reality television, undergirded by secrecy and lies, is tantamount to pouring gasoline on the fire of our struggle.”

Part of that struggle was also their parents’ involvement with the radical religious organisation, the Institute in Basic Life Principles. 

"We were part of IBLP as early as I can remember," Jill admitted on Prime Video’s new doco Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. She said the institute, "turned every father into a cult leader and every home into an island."

It was her cult leader-like father who forced Jill and her sister Jessa to partake in a TV interview with Megyn Kelly, in the wake of Josh’s abuse going public. Jill felt “obligated” to tell the world Josh, a father himself, wasn’t a “child molester, paedophile or rapist," all to save their reality show.

Image: Getty.

 “There was an urgency in trying to figure out how the show was going to be handled in the wake of the 2015 events,” she said. 

“As far as recovery and damage control, you just feel like a burden and the weight falls on you to help.” But it was the Duggar girls who needed the help.

The memoir will expose just how far Jim Bob and Michelle went to protect their sex offender son and prioritised their narrative over their long-suffering and damaged daughters. Its publisher, Simon & Schuster, want the TV parents to pay for their sins – a trial by general public, if you will. 

“Until it was cancelled in 2015, the hit show thrust Jill, her 18 siblings and her family's conservative independent Christian Baptist lifestyle into the spotlight — despite Jim Bob's knowledge of allegations his son Josh had molested Jill and other siblings,” the publisher said in its own announcement, questioning why Jim Bob, Michelle and co were granted a TV spinoff, Counting On, despite the allegations that Josh sexually abused his sisters, who were expected to star on the series. 

Simon & Schuster went further by taking aim at Michelle specifically, for being compliant, and protecting the patriarchy. “She didn’t protest the strict model of patriarchy that her family followed, which declares that men are superior, that women are expected to be wives and mothers and are discouraged from attaining a higher education, and that parental authority over their children continues well into adulthood, even once they are married.

“For as long as they could, Jill and Derick tried to be obedient family members — they weren’t willing to rock the boat. But now they’re raising a family of their own, and they’re done with the secrets.”

"I believe strongly that victims should always be protected,” Jill said on the new doco. “Victims should always be cared for. You're out there. Your story's out there," she continued. "I'd rather have some say in what that looked like." 

Jill will finally have her say, on her own terms, and her parents will be held accountable for enabling Josh’s alleged abuse, forcing them to be ‘reality stars’, and subjecting them to their cult-like religious beliefs, lies, intimidation, and manipulation. 

Parents to three children of their own, Jill and Derick hope by speaking about her trauma, they can demonstrate to others who are experiencing similar hardships that there is hope beyond the pain.

Featured Image: Amazon/Amazon Prime/Mamamia.

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