AP Photo/Danny JohnstonAccording to the internet, former 19 Kids and Counting star Josh Duggar just received his comeuppance at the hands of some woman named…Ashley Madison?
Wait, what was that again?
Ohhhhh…
So what happened was, the extramarital-affair hookup site Ashley Madison had a data breach last month and when news broke yesterday that hackers had published reams of data—including account names and partial credit card numbers—online, Gawker popped the champagne and got to work.
The fruits of that labor reportedly just saw the light: Gawker claims to have discovered the existence of an account opened with a credit card belonging to a Joshua J. Duggar and billed to an Arkansas address associated with the family.
E! News has reached out to reps for the Duggar family for comment, and while Gawker posted screengrabs that purport to show Josh's involvement on the site, their authenticity has not been independently verified.
Ashley Madison parent company Avid Life Media tells E! News in a statement: "By design, Avid Life Media does not verify email addresses. This means that anyone could have used any email address to sign up for an account. So a list of email addresses is not proof of anyone's membership."
Meanwhile, cue the hellfire and brimstone raining down from the Twitterverse.
But people aren't giddy with finger-pointing because they're terrible and waiting for just anyone to fall. They're thrilled because Josh Duggar was a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and abortion rights and used his Christian faith as a rationale in support of what amounts to discrimination. And while sadly not uncommon, that's not a way to win friends and influence people nowadays.
Moreover, in May, after In Touch published a decade-old police report, the married father of four admitted to molesting five minors, including two of his younger sisters, back when he was a teenager.
So here we are. Another possible Duggar scandal has been unearthed and social media is dishing dirt.
The scorn may amount to a convenient pile-on, people who got wind of the Gawker report who don't know the whole story racing to be the ones to cast the first stone. The New York Times did report in its account of the release yesterday that Ashley Madison is still investigating the validity of the leaked info.
But it's understandable why there isn't much inclination to hold back when it comes to judging someone who once was just that eager to do the judging himself.
Here's a sampling of those who are calling the alleged hypocrisy as they see it:
.@FRCDC the folks who tell womn what to do w/their bodies & their lives, while their execs seek extramarital affairs. http://t.co/2JvmZC9XUI
? Jodi Jacobson (@jljacobson) August 19, 2015What a hypocritical douchebag! #JoshDuggar What's the excuse this time? http://t.co/dXEwAlKpIb
? AndyCohensFanPage (@LoveAndyC) August 19, 2015OK this is pretty rich. http://t.co/Xp66OG8eKb
? Daryl Bartley (@hypercubexl) August 19, 2015Anybody shocked? Anybody..???? http://t.co/X7oYQ8XjwR
? Hot Country B104.7 (@B1047) August 19, 2015Oh, come on. Now this is just getting embarrassing.
http://t.co/V7b4V3bvk3
? Erica Pishdadian (@ericapishdadian) August 19, 2015