Joy-Anna Duggar is being accused of using her new baby as fodder to distract the public from taking a closer look at a new documentary with some damaging things to say about her family and upbringing.
The four-part limited docuseries ‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets' contains accusations against the once-beloved reality TV stars.
In explosive claims, the documentary aims at the head of the family, Jim Bob Duggar, and their religious upbringing, with some family members speaking out for the first time.
The Prime Video docuseries explores the secrets and the ins, and outs of the Duggar family, who became famous for their TLC show, 19 Kids and Counting.
The Duggar family isn’t known for responding to media headlines and attention.
But critics of the family think Joy-Anna Duggar isn’t just ignoring the chatter and are accusing her of using her new baby to distract people from the bad headlines.
In the popular Reddit community DuggarSnark, critics claim Joy-Anna is doing “damage control” and are using her kids to do so.
A thread titled 'More Damage Control from Joy!' is hundreds of comments deep.
The discussion sparked after Joy-Anna posted a new video to her family's YouTube channel, Follow the Forsyths. The channel often shares videos of her family, including her husband, Austin Forsyth, and their three kids: Gideon, 4, and Evelyn, 2, and their newest baby, Gunner.
The newest video posted June 2, the date the docuseries dropped on Amazon Prime, and shows her older kids meeting their baby brother for the first time.
'Our new baby's name is ...' was the title of the new video Joy-Anna posted.
In the 15-minute video, Joy-Anna is heading home after having her third baby. While in the car (Austin was driving), she talked a bit about how she and Austin landed on the name Gunner for their newborn.
The video was cute — it even included Gideon’s honest reaction to his brother’s name, another hot topic discussed in the Reddit community.
But critics were suspicious of the video's timing, claiming Joy-Anna is doing ‘damage control.’
“Nice try Joy but this photo and video will not distract anyone from the documentary,” one critic wrote. “Frankly, you need to stop posting your kids online …”
“They are all putting out content today to try to distract us from the abusive cult and pretend it’s not happening and pretend they’re a normal happy family!” another person commented.
“It's funny that they're posting this as if they think it's some big mystery when they posted the name on instagram a week ago,” someone else shared. “Surely all of their fans would've seen it there.”
Not everyone was convinced that’s what Joy-Anna was doing by posting the video.
“She always posts new vlogs on Friday,” one person noted. “I think it would be weirder if she didn't post.”
“People might be slightly distracted if one of the Duggars promised that their children would get a quality education at a real school,” joked another commenter. “A new Duggar baby…yawn.”
“The only way they'll distract from the documentary is if she files for divorce,” shared someone else. “Her or Anna.”
Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets is streaming now on Prime Video.
