It’s been a few years since Joy-Anna Duggar and her family were regular fixtures of TLC’s reality TV lineup, but around the time her older sisters were beginning to get married, the Duggars were at the height of their fame. Unfortunately, that means the girls ended up in some seriously creepy situations. According to Joy, that even included propositions from “hundreds of guys” that they had never even met.
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Joy opened up about what happened, sharing the news during a new podcast appearance.
While talking to hosts Matt and Abby Howard on The Unplanned Podcast last week, Joy revealed that “hundreds of guys” had reached out to her dad, Jim Bob, about possibly courting one of the daughters he shared with wife Michelle.
“I had my keepsake boxes. I had letters in there from when I was like 16-17,” she said.
Some of the letters Joy received were from 'guys from jail.'
Joy said that in the letters, the men would declare that they were in love with her or one of her sisters and sometimes share photos from jail as well. Others would simply ask to be their pen pals. Michelle would read the letters before handing them over to their daughters, and for the most part, the family laughed them off as “weird.”
She also mentioned that one man wrote a “whole long letter about how good he is [and] is an option for me, and God’s telling him that I should marry him, all this kind of stuff.”
Some men who were interested in courting a Duggar daughter would make their requests in person.
Joy’s husband, Austin Forsyth, was also a guest on the podcast and chimed in that he’d witnessed men coming up to his father-in-law “literally everywhere we went,” asking if they could speak with one of his daughters. There’s no doubt this must have been annoying for the family at best and likely scary sometimes at worst.
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This is part of the reason why Jim Bob's vetting process for his daughters' potential suitors was so intense.
Duggar fans have heard all about the wildly long questionnaire that the men interested in courting one of Jim Bob’s daughters would have to fill out, but given the creepy experiences with total strangers, Austin said he could understand it.
“I think that’s why Jim Bob wanted to have a month and a half relationship with me before, to see how real it is,” he said. “To introduce a guy onto your family’s TV show and then next season or next episode, he’s gone, like just don’t want that constant drama. I don’t blame him at all for wanting to [tell] the guys that came like, ‘Let’s nail it down.'”
Even today, Joy and Austin still experience the creepier things that come with their family's fame.
On the podcast, they shared that just three weeks earlier, they’d gotten a pizza delivery at their home at 11:30 p.m. that they hadn’t ordered with a note that it was for Joy-Anna Duggar and instructions to knock loudly on the door.
“It happens all the time to my family,” Joy admitted.
That must have been at least a little scary, especially with three little ones at home. We hope Joy and Austin stay safe!
