[static and high pitched tone]
- [Josh] So what are you here for? - [male investigator] We're part
of a specialized task force, and that task force is called
the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
- [Josh] Yep. - [male investigator] Based on an ongoing
investigation, we were able to get from this IP address
um, one specific video of child pornography, and one folder containing
approximately 65 images of child pornography.
- [Josh] Okay. - [male investigator] All right?
[Josh] Is there something going on on my devices?
[male investigator] That's what led us here, yes.
[Josh] Okay.
[male reporter] HSI was in Springdale investigating a business
associated with Josh Duggar.
I talked to my brother and he said,
it's just this ex-con that worked at his car lot, and it's all gonna be fine.
This is all gonna blow over. It's not true, none of it's true.
[Michelle] Ah, the things that children will do
when their parents are not around.
You know that verse that says,
"A child left to itself will bring its mother to shame?"
That is so true.
"The Sun" showed up at our door, and they were like, so is it true?
Your brother's about to be arrested?
And I was like, I don't wanna comment on that.
Well, reality TV star Josh Duggar,
of 19 and Counting fame has been arrested
by US Marshals in Arkansas.
Disturbing allegations against a member of the Duggar family.
I just couldn't believe what was in the news.
I said, I think we're living in the Twilight Zone.
Josh Duggar indicted for downloading and possessing child pornography.
He's facing two counts for receiving and possessing child porn.
[male reporter recording] Mr. Duggar, did you download
child pornography onto your computer?
[female reporter voiceover] He didn't say anything to the media.
He got into that black SUV waiting for him, and drove off.
A spokesperson for TLC tells ET that the network will not be moving forward
with the Duggar family's reality series.
It's like the epitome of evil. I don't think there's anything worse.
[haunting choral music]
[music crescendos]
Bobye says, Jim, we have company, it's Homeland Security.
They sit down and said, "Mr. Holt, I'm sure you know why we're here."
He starts talking and he goes, "Well, it's about Josh Duggar."
They said it wasn't about his past history.
It was something different.
- [slow eerie music plays] - [Derick] I texted Josh and I just said,
"Hey, I'm hearing rumors. "Is that even true?"
And he's like, "Absolutely not, especially something of that nature."
[male reporter] The Duggar family released a statement, quote,
"As to any investigation being conducted, to our knowledge,
no member of our family is a target of any investigation."
[Derick] On the day that our family statement's put out,
we know that the family had knowledge
that there's a child pornography investigation against Josh,
and they had that knowledge on the same day
that they made the statement.
Yeah, you might have fooled the public, but eventually,
if there's something to this, people are gonna realize it.
I think we were curious to just see
how everything unfolded, and to get the truth.
[tense music]
[male reporter] Testimony began today in the trial of Josh Duggar.
After opening statements, prosecutors presented
the jury with a computer that was found at Duggar's car dealership.
[Jen] The entire FundieSnark community obviously had
a vested interest in this story, and I followed it very closely.
The prosecution was able to point out
every single time Josh downloaded these images,
they have it pinpointed to the exact moment.
[female reporter] The agent also says that Duggar had a program
on his computer called Covenant Eyes,
which the agent called accountability software.
With Covenant Eyes, I'm winning the fight against porn every day.
[Jen] Covenant Eyes makes reports of all the websites
you've been on, and it sends them to a trusted accountabili-buddy.
[female reporter] While the public facing portion of the computer
appeared to be mostly business related,
the hard drive had in fact been split in two.
[Jen] Josh has always been known to be tech savvy.
He would've been the only one who knew how to circumvent the Covenant Eyes software.
[female reporter] The agent described the images
as in the top five of the worst of the worst that he has ever examined.
[Amy] The things that he looked at,
and the things that he enjoyed and got pleasure from
absolutely breaks my heart into a million pieces.
[dramatic theme music bellows]
It was horrible, because you sometimes feel like you failed.
Could we have tried more?
[emotional music swells]
When it's a friend doing things that are so vile,
and so wicked, that part really hurts. That's why I cry.
They seemed like such good people.
The sweetest family.
The way the show portrayed them was perfect.
[uplifting music plays]
[Bobye continues] Everything was always sunshiny and rosy.
I really think people put them on a pedestal,
but we know for a fact that there was such heartache
that they really did just have to put a face on.
They have to be happy all the time. They can never show real emotion.
They can never deal with what could be rumbling inside of their hearts.
[Michelle] Well, you guys can't kiss yet, but you can hold hands.
- [Jim Bob] That's right. (chuckling) - [Michelle] Your first kiss-
- [Jim Bob] We'll do the kissing. - We'll do the kissing.
[Jim Bob] If you feel the urge to kiss, just tell us, and we'll kiss.
[Michelle] We've prepared him all these years for this moment,
and I just am excited about their future.
[uplifting music plays]
Josh Duggar is charged with one count of possession of child pornography,
and if convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison and a 250…
[Jim off screen] There was an evidentiary hearing
to determine what evidence would be given at trial.
The prosecution wanted to see if they could use
the prior allegations of Josh molesting his sisters.
[Jill] Nobody obviously wants to testify,
but I was prepared to testify against my brother.
I guess they got what they needed from somebody else,
and didn't have to have me testify.
[female reporter] Today, the jury heard from former Duggar family friends.
I took the stand, and I really felt like it was important
to acknowledge to everyone in the room, and everyone that might hear this,
that God knows that I'm gonna tell the truth,
and I have to stand before Him one day for what I say, or what I don't say,
or what I do, and what I don't do, and so I did. I said, I do, so help me God.
The jury got to see that there is a pattern in Josh's life
that he began early on, and he got by with it time and time again.
- [dramatic music plays] - [Jen] Bobye Holt was exposing everybody
because she was saying everybody knew, this was an open secret.
Josh had molested several of his sisters, and they swept it under the rug.
That was a huge relief when I was done.
It was almost like we had waited all of these years
- just to be able to say that. - And we were taken seriously.
Yes. At one point, Jim Bob told you you were jealous.
He said, "Jim Bob, I would not trade places with you for a bazillion dollars."
[male reporter recording] Morning, Jim Bob. How you doing today, sir?
[male reporter voiceover] Jim Bob, who you see entering court here,
testified too about what his son told him.
[dramatic music plays]
[Dillon] At one point, the prosecuting attorney came up to him and she said,
"Heres the police report. Do you recognize the things that you said in there?"
And he goes, "Well, I don't recall really."
The fact that he can say that he doesn't remember
his own daughter's abuse makes me sick.
He kept answering all the questions like,
"I don't recall, I don't remember, that was so long ago."
- He just flat out lied. - [Jen] The judge got mad at him
and told him he couldn't come back, because he had a bad memory.
From that moment, yeah, he's done.
The hardest parts for me were the parts of like,
the old stuff being brought up that should have never been out there.
I just hope and pray that this never happens to anyone else ever again.
[music intensifies]
[female reporter] The case is in the jury's hands,
and then we'll have to find out tomorrow
exactly what's gonna happen with Joshua Duggar.
[music crescendos]
Tonight, 19 Kids and Counting star Jim Bob Duggar
announcing today that he is running for a seat in the Arkansas Senate.
As soon as I heard it, I absolutely just could not believe it.
He actually texted you, didn't he?
And sent you his website with the donation page.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
[female reporter] The news of Duggar's candidacy
comes amid a federal child porn investigation against his son.
I got a news alert on my phone, and I was like, what the what?
[suspenseful music plays]
[Heather] It's really, really bold to run for office
while you have a son on trial for child sexual assault materials,
but that is basically the embodiment of a fundamentalist dad.
[female reporter] Duggar said in a news release today
that he is running because of what he called out of control bureaucrats.
We heard reports of conspiracy theories.
Things like Josh's trial would never happen if Trump were still in office.
This is a Obama appointed judge.
[Jill] He was just grasping for anything.
I don't think that he believed for a second that he was wrong.
Satan's using this as a distraction to your family,
and to bring down your ministry, so still run for office
because you're still gonna do God's work.
There's a world system that's being controlled by Satan
that needs to be stood up against.
That sort of mindset comes from the Institute.
We are in a culture war.
We wanna see that culture war won by the Lord.
[Chad] Jim Bob lost, but their goal was to have one generation
start off this godly chain of events that the next generation would amplify,
until we essentially took over the entire world for Jesus Christ.
That was their stated goal.
There is always a bigger agenda.
[officers shouting together]
[Floyd] You wouldn't go to war in ancient times with a quiver of arrows
that only has one or two arrows in it.
[energetic music plays]
You want as many arrows as you can to shoot at the enemy.
[Jim Bob] That's what we're supposed to do with our children.
Nurture them, and grow them, and then send them out into the world
as strong arrows to have an impact on the world.
[energetic music crescendos]
The real story behind the Duggars is a much bigger one.
The Joshua Generation is one of the most ambitious plots
of modern evangelical history, and almost no one has ever heard of it.
[energetic music plays]
It's a decades long multi-generational plan to raise up an elite strike force
of Christian homeschool graduates
to infiltrate the highest levels of government.
My name is Alex Harris.
I'm a graduate of Harvard Law School, and I was a law clerk
for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the US Supreme Court.
I was previously one of the leaders of the Joshua Generation movement.
[music continues]
[Eve] A lot of the men who came up with the idea for the Joshua Generation
were influenced by Gothard, attending IBLP seminars,
and espousing Quiverfull ideals.
Gothard was the template. He's got his hands in everything.
Their kids were supposed to be this force
that was gonna conquer for the kingdom of God.
The whole purpose was really to position kind of the best and the brightest
of the Christian homeschool movement to assume positions of power and influence
in government and in the law.
The goal was Christian homeschool graduates who would be US senators,
who would be US presidents, and most importantly,
who would be US Supreme Court justices…
…In order to bring America back to its rightful position as a Christian nation.
[Eve] It starts in high school with organizations
like TeenPact and Generation Joshua, which were giving homeschooled
teenagers civics training, organizing training.
Vote for Mike!
[male reporter through TV] These volunteers are Huck's Army,
drawn here by Alex and Brett Harris.
There were worldview camps and there were homeschool debate clubs that you could
take on any liberal or atheist argument, or a statement, and debunk it.
It's how we defend our faith.
The training ground for the real battle ground that is the dark world outside.
We would go to the capital all the time.
I knew all of our representatives, and I knew the senators,
so that we could say, hey, this is what we want.
We want you to vote this way. We were loud, politically.
You take these kids and give them training in political engagement,
and then from there you send them into the halls of Congress,
into the White House, as interns.
You had institutions of higher education, first and foremost, Patrick Henry College,
where I became positioned to do all of the things that I have done since.
[female narrator] PHD graduates have served as press secretaries
in the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives,
have excelled at the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Homeland Security.
[Eve] Clerking for Supreme Court justices, being in Trump's cabinet.
They're popping up everywhere if you look for them.
Meet Elise Hall. She's 21, and just won election
to the Oklahoma State House of Representatives.
Your left wing movement is forcing children to endure
radical expressions of sexuality…
The most prominent member of the Joshua Generation was Madison Cawthorn.
Madam Speaker, a silent genocide has slipped beneath the conscience of America.
I hope that the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
And he made it all the way to the US Congress.
New this morning, North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn
addressing a new round of allegations.
Cawthorn was aggressive, misogynistic, and predatory towards women.
[Kristin] The most prominent leaders in this movement get caught up
in abuse scandals, and the communities are really trained to move on.
One of the Duggars is now running for Arkansas State representative in 2020.
I'm a Christian, and I will stand up for religious liberties.
I'm pro-life, and I will be an advocate for the unborn.
[male reporter] In a sweeping ruling that overturned a half a century of precedents,
five justices ended the right of American women
to choose abortion under the Constitution.
[Kristin] This isn't just about passing a law in this moment.
It's about so much more. They are looking generations ahead.
- They're playing the long game. - [suspenseful music plays]
It's always been encouraged to use whatever technology is available to you
to further the Christian agenda.
Like the Duggars, so yeah, now you have influencer culture.
[Heather] You have the rise of Christian influencers on Instagram, on TikTok.
No, God did not make you gay. Does a thief come out born a thief?
Social media seems almost tailor made for fundamentalism,
because it allows these ideas a broader audience than they've ever had before.
- [Morgan] Creation Museum! - [Paul] There it is!
They just so boldly and confidently speak like the Bible is true, creation is true.
We believe this.
[Jen] A great example is this channel called Paul and Morgan.
Guys, if you're new here, we're making Christian advice videos
- on life, love, and dating. - Woo, woo, woo!
- We met in a unconventional way. - For Christians, anyways.
[Morgan laughs] We met on Tinder.
♪ Dah nah nah ♪ Breaking news.
They're parroting these ideals of the older generation.
One major area in which God began to really work in my heart
was in the area of submission. My husband had asked me not to wear pants,
and I was out from under his authority, again.
They're very much passing it down, and making it cool and trendy.
Same book, different cover.
[male producer] What is the role of the wife?
So the role of the wife is to submit to your husbands,
- which ooh, scary word, "submit". - Very scary.
It's a choice to submit.
We do our YouTube channel, and share the word of God
because if we can be a light
even to one person out of a million, like, praise God.
You can't be a they/them, people, you can't!
I'm sorry, pick one or the other at least…
[Kristin] Social media can take something fringe.
Drag queens, it's so disgusting, it's so shocking.
And move them into the center of our conversation.
Some of you might go to hell
to be tormented day and night for all of eternity.
They're trying to present it as cool.
My seven tips for how to speak femininely.
I'll mainstream Christians posting the umbrella of authority.
Treat your husband as the head of the household, and obey him.
And I want to just grab them by the shoulders and say,
no, that was made by a cult leader.
Christian women should dress modestly.
You wouldn't repost something by Charles Manson. Don't do this.
God is trying to warn his children.
Uh-uh, Satan, the Lord is my shepherd.
God's word, of God's truth, of God's design.
- Biblical morality. - [jumbled clamoring]
That's where the devil gets you, alone in your room.
[influencers clamoring]
- [clamoring crescendos] - And that is the Joshua Generation.
Today, it's my honor and privilege
to join in this announcement of a guilty verdict
in the case of United States versus Josh Duggar.
No one is above the law, and that's what this case demonstrates.
[Deanna] Amy called me on the phone about the verdict,
and I said, well, Amy, justice has been served.
[suspenseful music plays]
[Bobye] I just felt like a flood of relief for the girls.
Never having to say, I forgive you, you didn't do anything wrong, it's okay.
Never having to face him knowing what he's done, and not be heard.
And we just hugged. We just sat there, and hugged probably two or three minutes.
- Yeah. - [music fades]
'Cause it felt like it was gonna finally come to an end.
[female reporter] Anything you wanna say, sir?
[male reporter] Do you have any comments for today, sir?
[Deanna] At this time, I have not spoken to my brother about any of this.
He needs to apologize to a lot of people.
[suspenseful music plays]
[Jill] My dad does control a lot of things in the family.
Family relationships were already kind of rocky.
I reached out to TLC to ask for all contracts that I had been involved in.
My parents had signed for a bunch of the kids
who were no longer minors, including myself.
I became an adult in 2009.
As the kids aged to adulthood, they're still listed as minors,
and nobody fixed that.
Everything within the family dynamic has shifted, and not for the better.
We're very much on the outside with the family.
They don't talk to us, and so for us, we don't know what's going on.
- We have no idea. - We typically find out what's going on…
- Through the media. - …Through People Magazine.
Through In Touch, through E!.
[Bobye] I try to look back at the Jim Bob and Michelle that we loved.
It was really hard, because it's just like you've lost your best friend.
[Jill] It's gonna change our family. It already has completely.
[music fades]
I have a notebook full of IBLP rules.
I took these notes in the living room with the other kids, my other cousins.
- [Producer] Who sat you down? - Jim Bob, of course.
Values to be a good wife.
It says, "He is your leader, your husband is your leader."
Would you have ever dreamed on your 20th birthday…
[Amy continues] Loyalty can be demonstrated only in adversity.
Think about that. Think about what that teaches.
Teaches you that you have no way out, and no matter what they do,
loyalty will shine through in adversity.
How messed up is that?
Be loyal to God, be loyal to your parents and that authority,
and be willing to love your spouse even when it hurts.
[male reporter] Do you have any comments, Anna?
You think 12 years is fair, Anna?
This comes up with Anna Duggar a lot. Why can't she just leave?
Oh, just let's take a look at why she just can't leave.
Okay, so she was raised without an education.
She was chosen for Joshua Duggar.
Her duty is to him, to be pleasing in every way, always,
even if he's not there. She has a bevy of children with him.
We all out here know that somebody like that would find resources.
She'd have a book deal so fast, but she doesn't know that.
She probably doesn't know the truth of her situation.
Josh was my first love, he's my one and only.
My only hope was to cling to my faith,
because I think in the stun, and in the shock of everything,
I was just praying, God help, help me to know how to respond to all of this.
[Tia] Young, idealistic people can get tangled up in that stuff
all of the time, as I know firsthand.
[female recording] And in here is Tia doing dishes again.
[Tia] In fundamentalism, suffering means holiness.
So I was just tapping into that narrative of if you're too happy, something's wrong.
In October of 2007, my husband followed me around the house for four hours
with a length of firewood, promising to bludgeon me to death.
Then outta the blue, he goes, "I'm outta here."
And I heard a voice in my head that said, run right now.
So I went and got the kids, and put them in the car,
and he had gone back to his office to get his gun,
and if I had stayed home, we would be dead.
I escaped by the skin of my teeth, so I'm never gonna say it's easy.
For me and a lot of other survivors, Josh's trial has given me a lot of hope.
I hope for a reckoning.
[tense music plays]
A group of women come forward and sue IBLP,
and then a little bit later on add Gothard into that lawsuit.
The allegations are that Gothard sexually abused and harassed them.
IBLP as an organization knew, and chose to look the other way.
I was very aware of the lawsuit when it popped up against Bill Gothard.
I was aware of it far before it became public, because I was asked
to be a part of it, and I turned it down because I was petrified.
At the time, I felt that I would be in danger.
So, I joined the lawsuit as Jane Doe number three.
When you join a lawsuit, it's constantly rehashing
the most horrific memories of your life, and telling them again, and again.
If you decide to move forward in a case it's also important that you realize
the emotional toll that it's going to continue to take on you.
Quite frankly, the cost was too high.
One of our factors was statute of limitations.
[dramatic music plays]
[Emily] And the lawsuit was dismissed.
I knew that the organization was big enough.
I knew that they had a lot of money. I was just like, there is no way.
I mean, it is literally a David and Goliath situation here.
[Brooke] Gothard had a lot of money and resources,
so he countersued some of the original plaintiffs.
He was asking us to pay approximately 18,000 a piece.
And now the plaintiffs were on the defense.
[dramatic music crescendos]
And my friend Amy and I heard they're going to have
a hearing about this in Chicago. And so I tell Amy, we've gotta go.
[energetic music plays]
The victims feeling validated, and feeling heard was really the thing at stake here.
To me, that's not even scratching the surface of what they're owed,
and what all of us are owed.
There were literally hundreds of thousands of children
raised in this ATI program under these same teachings.
John Cornish, one of the co-founders of Recovering Grace,
gives me Bill Gothard's phone number, and so I decide, well, we are in Chicago.
- Why don't we go over to his house? - [audience applauds]
Bill Gothard kind of came to loom over my life, even as an adult.
Bill Gothard used to speak to stadiums, you know, every week,
and now he just sits alone in his house.
This kind of Peter Pan-like character
living in the home he's lived in in his entire life.
[suspenseful music plays]
He was waiting at the front door wearing a full suit, a tie. He had done his hair.
His entire living room is covered in boxes,
all copies of the 37 self-published books that he's written.
[music intensifies]
We sit down, and he says that he wants to pray for me.
And so he looks at the floor, and closes his eyes,
and I look at the floor and close my eyes,
and then I realize, why am I pretending right now?
So I opened my eyes and when I do, he's looking at me.
His eyes are open.
It was kind of like, you know, looking the devil in the eye.
In that moment, everything made sense to me.
[audience applauds]
His word, his principles is what God accomplished here tonight.
About wisdom. God's will, the love of the Lord.
Pleasing for what you could do.
- [audience applauds] - [eerie music crescendos]
It was just a man the whole time.
[gentle music]
When I testified in court, in front of him, I locked eyes with Bill.
I had taken my power back. I had taken my voice back.
After a full day of testimony, the judge denied Gothard's sanctions.
He found our testimony to be credible…
…And we got to walk out of that courtroom victorious.
- [Heather] Ma. - What?
If you go on ATI's website,
it says ATI was a homeschooling program from 1984 to 2021.
As of now, ATI doesn't exist anymore,
and they're just selling all of these wisdom booklets
as a Bible study available to anyone who wants to buy it.
Booklets that we were forced to use, they are now diminishing it to, you know,
a goddamn Bible study.
At face value, I take it as a victory because I think that they're scared.
But IBLP still exists.
This is the first I'm hearing about it, as are several of the ATI survivors.
There's things that Bill Gothard stole from us
that we could never get back, like our childhoods.
And there's so many people who grew up
in this educationally neglectful homeschool program,
and now are struggling financially to get by.
[suspenseful music plays]
When you grow up in such a stringent belief system,
I think that the natural impulse is just to rebel against it.
I had been rejecting my upbringing for so long,
I realized that I'd ended up kind of empty inside.
I first read The Handmaid's Tale in college. I was like, oh this is my life.
Around that time period,
I was dealing with the power struggle with me and my father
over, you know, whether or not he considered me
to be an adult, or somebody totally under his authority.
It really did create a sense of urgency in me
to start trying to understand what the fuck I had been raised in.
We got married in 2005, and in 2012 is when, you know, the curtain dropped.
I ended up having a lot of health issues after having our son.
All of this medical stuff was exploding.
I'm having strokes, and sick, and then unbeknownst to me,
- because I was in survival mode. - I gave up.
I was checked out. I started drinking.
And we separated. I was a single mom for a little bit,
- and he had a lot of… - I had a lot of time to drink.
[gentle music plays]
In this cult, the whole fear of your kids ending up bad,
or ending up doing drugs, ending up in jail, or whatever.
I ended up in jail anyways.
In my twenties, I started shoplifting, and I didn't know why I did it.
I didn't need anything. I was in jail several times.
One time, for about a week.
I sought out an addiction recovery program.
The first thing they had me do in their 12 step program
was talk about and confront my childhood, which I had never done before.
[emotional music plays]
At one time at work,
I just absolutely just had a overwhelming sense of panic.
So I started going to a counselor.
We spent about three whole sessions talking about,
well, let's talk about your upbringing first. What was that like?
She said, you're exhibiting a lot of the same symptoms
that people who were raised in high controlling religious groups show.
And she said, and honestly, you need to start considering reaching out
beyond what you were taught, maybe going to other churches.
Put your hand down if you decided to make your first TikTok video
about how your parents joined a cult when you were 12…
Deconstruction is deciding for yourself if the things you were taught
is really the truth you believe in, and if it's not, what would it look like?
Do you even believe in God?
Hey, I'm Heather, and I was raised in this cult.
Deconstructing is an exhausting process.
All of this stuff that you believed just got turned upside down,
and now your thinking is all new now.
[tense music plays]
[Brooke] Becoming the person that I wanted to be now is a big step
in my a deconstruction.
I put myself through college, and then a PhD program.
I was like, ah, watch me. Watch how much education I can get.
I have sinned against God, and I cannot save myself…
I definitely have changed.
[Jill] Jing is talking about how there was a lot of fear growing up.
[Jinger] We followed a teacher named Bill Gothard.
The show definitely influenced a lot of people
to get into Bill Gothard's teaching with IBLP,
and now this is a correction coming back and saying,
don't follow these teachings, they're so harmful.
[Amy] Watching Jill change to how she is now, it is night and day difference,
and I'm just really, really, really proud of her.
[Jill] If you were in ATI or IBLP,
unfortunately, a lot of times you have to go through help
because it's not until then that you would risk everything
to like, get out of those situations.
Eventually, you start making your own decisions.
It's like the nose ring that I got, and it's piece by piece, little by little
to like, do what you need to to survive.
Speaking up is like the last step in kind of deconstructing the Gothard ideology.
We've lived it. They made us live it, and we have some things to say.
That little voice in the back of your head that says, this is wrong?
That's right. Don't lose that.
You are trustworthy, and you can believe yourself.
No matter what, God actually loves you.
To a young girl still trapped in that world,
you don't have to own any of the shame that anyone tries to ascribe to you.
I wake up sometimes thinking, this is my life. I made this.
I made this for me, and no one told me I could or couldn't.
Wow, guys.
Sorry, that's heavy.
Fuck. [exhales]
It's weird, the things I thought I would cry about, I didn't.
And the things that I thought'd be fine are hitting me.
Anyway, okay.
Sorry, guys.
- [sniffles] - [intense music plays]
When you leave, and you're actually out there flailing like a new little fish,
Um…[struggles to speak]
…There are people that catch you. The universe catches you.
[Chad] Those of us who experienced the hurt and the abuse,
watched as people celebrated it on TV, and didn't have our stories told.
I believe strongly that victims should always be protected.
Victims should always be cared for.
You're out there, like your story's out there,
so you just feel like I'd rather have some say in what that looks like.
[Chad] We had this power the entire time over the people who were hurting us.
It turns out, as much as they tried to control us,
we were ultimately what they most feared, and all we had to do was talk.
- So I decided I'd use my TikTok… - [talking over each other]
Young Quiverfull mom…
Grew up in the same cult that…
And I was raised in this cult…
just one of thousands and thousands and thousands…
-[chatter and music crescendo]
[gentle music continues through credits]