Amy Duggar Explains Decision To Join ‘Marriage Boot Camp’ Cast, Addresses Domestic Abuse Reports

Amy Duggar is setting the record straight about reports that domestic abuse played a part in her decision to appear on WE tv’s Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars.

Amy Duggar, the 30-year-old niece of 19 Kids and Counting stars Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, will soon return to TV. Amy has not appeared on the Duggars’ new reality show, Counting On, at all, so it’s been a long time since fans of the Duggar family have seen “rebel” cousin Amy on the small screen. Her last major TV appearance was in November of 2014 when she appeared in her own 19 Kids and Counting special, “Amy’s Nashville Dreams.”

Amy Duggar’s new TV gig is much different than her famous family’s TLC shows, which aim to make the Duggars appear like a wholesome, happy bunch that rarely bicker or raise their voices. Marriage Boot Camp viewers tune in to see drama, including screaming matches, alcohol-fueled meltdowns, and nasty catfights. During a recent interview with People, Amy Duggar admitted that she and her husband, Dillon King, do get in occasional arguments, but they didn’t join the show because their 15-month marriage is in serious trouble.

“For us, it was nothing more than we need to learn to communicate,” Amy said. “Dillon has a tone that drives me up the wall sometimes and when we bicker, we have to learn how to talk to each other.”

“We were friends for so long before we got married, so we always joked and said things to each other because we were just friends. Now that we are married, it’s a whole new level of respect that we had to learn.”

In other words, they were in no danger of divorcing when they decided to join the Marriage Boot Camp cast.

Amy Duggar isn’t just reassuring fans that a divorce isn’t in the cards — she’s also letting them know that her husband is not physically abusive. In a teaser video for Marriage Boot Camp that was released earlier this month, Amy talks about a man grabbing her by the neck. Some fans assumed that she was referencing a violent encounter with Dillon King.

“He picked me up by the throat, all the way up to the ceiling,” Amy tells Dr. Venus Nicolino in the clip.

As the Hollywood Gossip reports, Amy’s out-of-context words concerned some fans of the Duggars so much that they tried to use the family’s official Facebook page to reach out to Amy. A few of them urged her to end her marriage.

“If your husband choked you that’s not love,” one fan wrote.

However, Amy Duggar recently revealed that she was not talking about Dillon physically abusing her in the Marriage Boot Camp clip. On Wednesday, she tweeted that her husband had nothing to do with the incident she was describing.

“The story I was describing in the Marriage Bootcamp teaser does not involve Dillon in any way. #Ilovemyhusband,” Amy wrote.

Amy Duggar also talks about the teaser in a Facebook video. She says that she would never be with a man that would physically harm her, and she reveals that the reports about Dillon being abusive have been “really hard” on them. Dillon has even been receiving hate mail.

Amy Duggar also wants her fans to know that she and Dillon did not appear on Marriage Boot Camp for money or fame. She told People that the show has helped her and Dillon achieve their goal of learning to communicate better, and now they’re on “cloud nine.”

“We are really happy we learned how to communicate in a healthy way and we’re completely in love with each other.”

In a December 6 Instagram post, Amy reveals that she has learned that “love isn’t a fairytale” — she’s learned that relationships take a lot of hard work. She also says that she and Dillon King took the Marriage Boot Camp program “very seriously,” and she warns her followers that she has a few ugly moments on the show.

“I’ll be honest there were scenes that I’m not proud of. There were some very hard moments where my character wasn’t all that pretty, but I think it was necessary for me to be vulnerable during the drills about my past in order to forgive.”

You can watch Amy Duggar and Dillon King’s Marriage Boot Camp journey when Season 7 premieres Friday, January 6 at 9 p.m. ET on We tv. The other couples appearing on the show are Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum (The Bachelorette), PreMadonna and Buck Thomas (Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta), Gabi Victor and Victor Tarrats (Bad Girls Club), and Renee Graziano and Joey Gambino (Mob Wives).

[Featured Image by Dillon & Amy King/Facebook]