Amy Duggar King said she knew there would be more scandals after Josh Duggar’s arrest, and that instinct came back hard when Joseph Duggar was arrested in March on child sex crime charges. She said she cried immediately when she heard the news and then again when she learned Kendra Duggar had also been arrested.

King made the comments Wednesday, May 13, on The Dory Jackson Interview series on YouTube, saying she had kept her distance from the Duggar family because she believed the problems did not end with Josh. She said, “I really kept those boundaries in place after Josh because I knew it didn’t end with Josh,” and added, “I just knew it didn’t.”

Joseph Duggar, 39, was accused of molesting a 9-year-old girl during a 2020 family vacation in Florida. He has pleaded not guilty and requested a jury trial. Days after his initial arrest in March, he and Kendra Duggar were charged in Arkansas with four separate counts of endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree and four counts of second-degree false imprisonment. Both entered not guilty pleas.

The case lands three years after Josh Duggar was convicted in 2021 and later began serving a 12.5-year prison sentence for receiving and possessing child sexual abuse materials. King said she had already braced herself for another scandal, telling the interviewer that her book had warned there would probably be more because she did not believe the pattern “just starts and stops with Josh.”

That fear shaped how she dealt with the family long before Joseph Duggar’s arrest. King said it had been “a long time” since she last spoke with Joseph or Kendra, but that she would still greet them if they crossed paths. “Even though they’re my family and it’s horrible and there’s a lot of darkness, that’s not my life,” she said, adding that she would keep looking after herself. She said that after Josh’s case she had turned to comfort food and gained weight, and that she now plans to keep the same boundaries in place.

King also said the latest arrest stunned her because of who was involved. “You’re never prepared for that kind of news,” she said. “I immediately cried.” She said it “broke my heart” that the person accused was someone she knew, but added that family ties still matter to her. “At the same time, family is — you still care,” she said. “You want the best for everyone.” The next step is the Arkansas case itself, where both Joseph and Kendra Duggar have already entered not guilty pleas and a jury trial request has been made in Joseph’s case.