Exclusive: Jill and Jessa Duggar on feeling 'helpless'
Sisters discuss possible legal action, future of TLC show on 'The Kelly File'
Josh Duggar's creepy scandals caused a trail of tears on TLC's special "Jill & Jessa: Counting On" Sunday night.
The show caught up with the Duggar girls after their family's original reality series, "19 Kids and Counting," was canceled following the revelation of their big brother's shocking misdeeds.
As FOX411 previously reported, the TLC reality show that chronicled the home life of Arkansas parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar was pulled from the network in May amid reports that Josh, the oldest of the Duggar siblings, had molested four of his sisters and a baby sitter.
But that wasn't all — in August, Josh publicly apologized for a pornography addiction and cheating on his wife Anna after it was reported that he was a customer of Ashley Madison, a dating website specializing in extramarital affairs. Then in November, adult film actress Ashley Stamm-Northup, known as Danica Dillon, sued Josh, claiming the reality TV star assaulted her on two occasions when consensual sex turned rough.
Sunday night's show, the first of three "Jill & Jessa" specials, focused on how the fallout from Josh's actions had affected the other Duggars.
It opened four months after the scandal, with Jill and Jessa telling the cameras how hard it'd been for the famous TV family. When viewers last saw the Duggars, Jill and husband Derick Dillard had welcomed baby son Israel, and Jessa had married Ben Seewald.
Since then, Jessa and Ben found out that they were expecting (she was 35 weeks along during Sunday's special). The couple knows the gender of their baby but hasn't told the rest of the family.
The other happy pair, Jill and Derick, decided to move to Central America with their baby to do missionary work.
But the elephant in the room for Jill and Jessa (who spoke exclusively to Megyn Kelly about being Josh's molestation victims) was their brother's transgressions.
Jessa lamented that during the happiest time of her life, when she was a newlywed and expecting, a magazine broke the story that Josh had molested four sisters and a babysitter in 2002 and 2003.
Jill insisted the bombshell family secret hadn't been pushed under the rug, sobbing, "Years ago, when the situation took place ... we had to go through lots of different steps, including counseling."
Jessa told the cameras, "It's shocking ... it's your older brother, somebody who you love, who you trust. Definitely, there was a period of time in our family where Josh was not to be trusted. He spent time away from home getting help."
Then Jill recalled how their healing process started 12 years ago and the sisters chose to forgive Josh.
Jessa claims that Josh had to prove he was worthy of being trusted — and he did.
As on "The Kelly File," the two expressed sadness that Josh's old police report was released. Teary-eyed Jill said she felt "thrown under the bus" and added, "As a victim ... you've already moved on and you don't want that rubbed in your face all the time."
However, Josh continued to cause problems for the family. Just months after the molestation scandal, the public learned his name was allegedly connected to an Ashley Madison account.
"Josh ended up confessing to us that he had gotten addicted to pornography and that he had been unfaithful to his wife," Jessa said. "We were devastated. It seemed like it was just a bad dream, like how could this happen? How do you go from being in this wonderful marriage relationship to living sort of a double life and being unfaithful to your spouse?"
When Jill was asked about why she and Jessa defended her brother on Kelly's show, she says he should have told them the truth instead of letting them stand up for him on national TV.
Also on the show, oldest sister Jana remembered how mom Michelle told them about Josh's cheating. Through tears, Jana says Michelle revealed Josh was leading "a double life ... he wasn't who he appeared to be and news had come out about his lifestyle."
Jana says father Jim Bob had sat down with Josh and he admitted it was true.
Duggar brother Joseph also weighed in, saying, "It blew my mind ... I don't think there's any way any of us would have known that my brother was living such a secret life ... it broke my heart."
In perhaps the most devastating indictment, brother John-David told the cameras, "I always wanted to be like [Josh] but one of the toughest things I had to tell my older brother was, 'I don't want to be like you anymore.' "
"Jill & Jessa: Counting On" resumes Sunday on TLC.
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