Josh Duggar checks into rehab, family says

Maria Puente | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Josh Duggar checks into rehab following Ashley Madison confession Days after admitting he had been unfaithful to his wife using the Ashley Madison website, the former star of TLC's now cancelled show '19 Kids And Counting,' Josh Duggar has checked himself into rehab. Sean Dowling (@seandowlingtv) has more.

Another bombshell in the Duggar family saga has landed: Josh Duggar has checked into rehab.

But for what? His family doesn't say in their website announcement Wednesday. But since he confessed last week to hypocrisy, infidelity and being a porn addict, people will draw their own conclusions.

The news came in another gob-smacking note on the website of the ex-reality-TV stars, now stripped of their show, 19 Kids and Counting. They're still reeling from the effects of two major sex scandals involving Josh, threatening their status as icons of Christian family values, not to mention Josh's marriage to wife Anna and their four children.

"We are so thankful for the outpouring of love, care and prayers for our family during this most difficult situation with Josh," Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's statement began. "As parents we are so deeply grieved by our son’s decisions and actions. His wrong choices have deeply hurt his precious wife and children and have negatively affected so many others. He has also brought great insult to the values and faith we hold dear.

"Yesterday Josh checked himself into a long-term treatment center. For him it will be a long journey toward wholeness and recovery. We pray that in this he comes to complete repentance and sincere change. In the meantime, we will be offering our love, care and devoted support to Anna and our grandchildren as she also receives counsel and help for her own heart and future. During this time we continue to look to God — He is our rock and comfort. We ask for your continued prayers for our entire family."

Josh Duggar is, so far, the most well-known celebrity to have been caught with accounts on the Ashley Madison cheating website, discovered when hackers stole and published online millions of account names.

He copped to the embarrassing (but not illegal) facts in a remarkably brutal self-assessment on the family website last week, calling himself the "biggest hypocrite ever.

"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."

This news followed Josh's first scandal, astonishing tabloid revelations in May that he had molested five underage girls, including his sisters, when he was a teenager in Arkansas. He was investigated by police but never charged, and his parents covered up the matter until the statute of limitations had expired.

His parents confirmed the scandal on their website and the family was rocked by the fire hose of mockery and contempt that poured out on social media. As advertisers fled in droves, calls mounted to cancel the show. Eventually the TLC network, reluctant to give up on its most popular reality show, complied.

A sign of what was next in the Josh Duggar story was seen Tuesday when Anna's brother, Daniel Keller, began publicly bashing Josh, saying on social media that he "won't stop trying to get that pig out of our family."

Keller also said his own parents are "more interested in how there (sic) daughter getting a divorce will make then look then they are in trying to truly get josh some help and getting Anna and the kids out of there till he has gotten that help."

Even Duggar-friendly People magazine has started reporting more critical assessments (though still based on unnamed sources) of the family they have long chronicled. The leading celeb bible reported Wednesday that the whole family feels deeply betrayed by Josh, a sentiment confirmed by the family's own website note.