Josh Duggar Used Israel Photo On Ashley Madison Profile, Also Shared It On Instagram
Josh Duggar tried to hide his identity in his Ashley Madison profile photos, but he didn’t do a very good job of it — one of the pictures he used was also posted on his Instagram page for the entire world to see.
Josh Duggar was one of the Ashley Madison users whose account information was leaked by hackers this summer. The former 19 Kids and Counting star created two accounts on the website aimed at married people who want to cheat on their spouses, and Gawker recently discovered both of Josh’s profile photos. Josh chose the user name Josh_the_man for the first Ashley Madison account, which he set up in February 2013. His first profile picture shows him flexing his arm, but his bicep is strategically covered up by his shirt. Because Josh Duggar has a famous face, he tried to hide his identity by covering up his countenance with an empty speech bubble.
Here are the photos Josh Duggar used for his Ashley Madison profiles https://t.co/FowwU4mIZN pic.twitter.com/vir71hBalu
— Gawker (@Gawker) October 26, 2015
Josh Duggar’s second account was set up in July 2014, a few weeks after he and Anna Duggar celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary. Josh paid to keep it active until May 2015, which is the month that In Touch Weekly revealed that Josh had sexually molested a babysitter and four of his sisters as a teenager. The second Ashley Madison account was created under the username Ready4thisDC, likely because Josh was living in Washington, D.C. at the time. This time around, he opted against showing off his body. Instead, he chose a headshot and superimposed an image of a masquerade mask over his eyes.
The second image Josh Duggar used on Ashley Madison was previously posted on his Instagram page on January 20, 2014. It was taken in Sderot, Israel, and the full image shows Josh holding the remnants of a rocket.
“Sderot, #Israel is less than 1 mile from Hamas controlled #Gaza,” Josh captioned the photo. “Some of the rockets that have been hurled into this city are now piled on racks at the local police station, providing a glimpse into the threat that families here face in their daily lives. #terror #missiles.”
Gawker reports that Josh Duggar’s profile photos are visible to any Ashley Madison users searching the site. They were discovered by a user with a free account.
As the Inquisitr previously reported, Josh was a little more careful when he created a profile on the OkCupid dating website. To hide his identity, he stole a photo from a DJ named Matthew James McCarthy, and he used it as his profile picture. After McCarthy was informed that Duggar was using his image, he was horrified — he dubbed the former 19 Kids and Counting star a “maniac” and “child molester,” and he criticized Josh Duggar for trying to cheat on his wife of seven years, Anna Duggar.
At the time Josh set up his first Ashley Madison account in February 2013, Anna was pregnant with their third child, and Josh was still working at a used car lot in Arkansas. However, it was obvious that he had political aspirations — he held a “fiscal cliff sale” the month before he joined the cheating website.
According to the Huffington Post, Josh got a lot more involved in politics a few months later when the Family Research Council (FRC) lobbying group hired him. In June 2013, Josh was named the executive director of FRC Action, and he and Anna Duggar moved to D.C. Josh’s duties included speaking out against abortion and gay marriage.
PEOPLE reports that Josh resigned from his position with the FRC in May after his sexual molestation scandal made headlines.
“I deeply regret that recent media reports about my long ago past has brought negative attention to FRC Action and its work to preserve and advance the interests of family, faith, and freedom in the political arena,” Josh Duggar wrote in his resignation statement.
“FRC Action’s mission to fortify the traditional foundations of civil society is more important now than ever before, and I’m heartbroken that any attention has been diverted from these noble causes to my wrong actions as a young teenager.”
After Josh Duggar’s name was found on the leaked list of Ashley Madison users a few months later, he issued another statement. Once again, he fessed up after evidence of his behavior was posted online.
“I have been the biggest hypocrite ever,” Josh confessed on the Duggar Family website. “While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife.”
Instead of trying to work things out with Anna Duggar by attending marriage counseling, Josh left his family to check himself into a faith-based treatment program called Reformer’s Unanimous. The Rockford, Illinois, treatment center bills itself as a “school of discipleship,” not a rehab center. Josh checked into the center late in August, and he probably won’t return home to his family until February of next year.
There’s no indication that Anna plans on divorcing Josh Duggar, and there’s no word on how he plans on supporting his family after he returns home.
[Image via Josh Duggar/Instagram]