19 Kids and Counting’s Amy Duggar Reveals Shocking Amount of Money She Made From Show
Amy Duggar King doesn’t have a lot to account for when it comes to her 19 Kids and Counting earnings.
After all, the 30-year-old—who is the niece of Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar, as well as cousin to the couple’s 19 children—said she’s received “zero” money from her appearances on the TLC series.
“My uncle,” she began on the Oct. 1 episode of The Viall Files, “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 continued, “Was there any compensation? Nada.”
In fact, the Holy Disruptor: Shattering the Shiny Facade by Getting Louder with the Truth author said she “signed a contract blindly.”
She estimates that the show, which ran from 2008 to 2015, made “over $6 million” during its 10-season run.
Amy added of Jim Bob, 60, “He’s very smart, he really is. He’s a businessman and he knows how to do it.”
E! News has reached out to Jim Bob for comment but hasn’t heard back.
But 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.”
Instagram/Amy Duggar KingThe 34-year-old alleged that Jim Bob did eventually offer a lump sum to his children for their TV appearances, though receiving the money would require them to “sign another deal.”
Jill said she and her husband Derick Dillard “were automatically like, ‘We’re done.'”
The pair quit 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.”
According to Derick, what they got “probably ended up being a little more than minimum wage.”
The 36-year-old added, “But we were able to recover at least something.”
D Dipasupil/Getty Images for ExtraJim Bob has not publicly addressed Jill and Derick’s allegations on their lack of compensation. However, he and Michelle, 59, have slammed Shiny, Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets.
“The recent ‘documentary’ that talks about our family is sad because in it we see the media and those with ill intentions hurting people we love,” the couple wrote in a statement shared to their official website at the time of the docuseries’ release. “Like other families, ours too has experienced the joys and heartbreaks of life, just in a very public format.”
They added, “This ‘documentary’ paints so much and so many in a derogatory and sensationalized way because sadly that’s the direction of entertainment these days.”
For everything to know about the Duggar family, read on.
