Amy Duggar King is opening up about a painful chapter in her family history.
In her new memoir, Holy Disruptor: Shattering the Shiny Facade by Getting Louder With the Truth, released Tuesday, October 14, the 39-year-old reveals the alleged abuse her mother, Deanna, endured at the hands of her father, Jimmy Lee Duggar.
“Grandpa Duggar was a complicated man. … He was off-the-wall, unpredictable, reckless, and practically a real-life Kramer from Seinfeld,” Amy wrote. While she described her grandfather as “hilarious,” she also admitted he was “possibly a little insane.” Amy explained that she and her cousins — the 19 children of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar — learned “to be very cautious around” him, as he had a “darker side.”
According to Amy, Jimmy Lee had a difficult childhood with an alcoholic father who “often [used] his son as a punching bag,” which contributed to his own volatile temperament as an adult. Deanna, 63, and her brother were raised with “corporal punishment,” and Amy noted, “There was little distinction between discipline and cruelty, and the line was often crossed.”
Amy described two particularly terrifying incidents. The first occurred when Deanna returned home from college. She allegedly saw her father “yelling violently” at her mother and tried to leave the room, but couldn’t escape. “With a leather belt in his hand and the most haunting, crazed look in his eyes, he grabbed her by the legs, held her down on the bed, and began beating her, every hit harder than the last. … This brutal torture lasted for more than an hour,” Amy claimed. She said Deanna was left “black and blue and beaten to a bloody pulp,” and that her grandmother never came to help.
The second incident took place when Deanna was 21, after Jimmy Lee learned she wanted to move in with her then-boyfriend. Amy wrote, “He grabbed her by the throat, carried her from the kitchen to his bed, and jumped on top of her. He wrapped his hands around her neck, lay on top of her so she was unable to move, and started strangling her. … He almost succeeded in murdering my mother.” Thankfully, Deanna’s mother called for help, and Jim Bob intervened. “Jim Bob might not have known it at the time, but he saved her life that day,” Amy said.
While the physical abuse reportedly stopped after that day, Deanna still experienced “bickering and name-calling.” She warned her own daughter to “never be alone with Grandpa,” and it took years for Amy to understand why. “The reason I was not allowed to be alone with my grandpa was because he was a predator!” Amy wrote. “Underneath JL’s charming and funny personality was a true monster.”
