From the time they started dating, rumors about Joy-Anna Duggar and Austin Forsyth breaking courtship rules began circulating online non-stop.
Some of the claims were ridiculous (a false report that Joy-Anna was pregnant before marriage briefly made the rounds on social media), but it turns out, at least one them was legit.
In a preview for Monday night’s Counting On after-show, Joy-Anna and Austin reveal that they did, in fact, violate her family’s rules for pre-marital dating.
But it wasn’t the sort of behavior that results in a shotgun wedding.
In an interview with Daphne Oz, Austin confirms that he and Joy-Anna … front-hugged.
Yes, the Duggars allow only side-hugs before marriage, because it’s well known that Jesus wanted young people to spend their lives in a constant state of sexual frustration.
Austin opened up about his dance with the devil, saying:
“We’re humans and sometimes we don’t always abide perfectly by our rules. We try. That was a real hard try.”
A real hard try.
The real sin here is that no one jumped in and shouted, “Phrasing!”
The young couple also opened up about the moment that Austin proposed to Joy-Anna, a moment that, of course, was captured by a TLC camera crew.
Testing the gullibility of even the most naive Duggar fans, Joy-Anna claims she was so caught up in the moment she didn’t even realize she was being filmed.
“I didn’t even notice that they were there,” she explains.
“I thought it was just us there, and that was really special.”
Austin chimed in with:
“Those cameramen looked like trees.”
Quite the wit, that guy.
Look, we all suspend our disbelief when we watch reality television.
We pretend people actually start conversations with “So what’s going on with [absent cast member]?” and that guys who work in pawn shops routinely engage in wacky bets like they’re on a particularly lame ’90s sitcom.
But we don’t believe for a second that Austin’s proposal was spontaneous, and a camera crew just happened to be following him and Joy-Anna through the woods that day.
You could practically see those two reading their lines off cue cards.
Watch Counting On online for more deception from the Duggars.
