Kendra Duggar got emotional over not having custody of her four kids during a post-arrest phone call with her husband, Joseph Duggar.
Joseph — who shares children Garrett, Addison, Brooklyn and a fourth baby with his wife — called Kendra from the Washington County Detention Facility in Arkansas on March 24.
“I think Friday has probably been my hardest day, but that’s crazy to say because Wednesday was crazy hard,” Kendra told her husband during a phone call obtained by People. (Joseph was arrested on Wednesday, March 18, and Kendra was detained on Friday, March 20, but released from jail hours later.)
“But it’s just like, when you then take my babies from me, they were who I was just going to pour my life into,” she added.
Joseph chimed in, telling Kendra, 27, that their kids are her “purpose right now.”
During another phone call, Kendra told her incarcerated husband that their kids are her main concern.
“I’m fighting for the kids and they’re my number one priority right now,” she told him.
Joseph, 31, responded that he is “100% behind” his wife and that she “should be fighting for them the most.”
In response, Kendra said, “I just want you to know, through all of this, whatever happens, that’s who’s coming first,” adding that “then we’ll just see where the rest of it leads us and try to put the pieces together.”
Before ending the call, Kendra told her husband that his kids love him, too.
In a March 22 phone call obtained by TMZ, Kendra warned Joseph not to trust anyone as he remains in jail.
As Page Six previously reported, Joseph was arrested in Arkansas earlier this month and was later transferred to the Bay County Jail in Panama City, Florida.
He was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior involving a victim younger than the age of 12 and lewd and lascivious behavior conducted by a person 18 or older, the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement March 18.
In 2020, the “19 Kids and Counting” alum allegedly touched a then-9-year-old girl’s genitals during a family getaway in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Two days later, Kendra was arrested and she and her husband were both charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and four counts of false imprisonment, reportedly over rooms with locks on the outside of the doorknob.
On Tuesday, Joseph was released on a $600,000 bond after pleading not guilty to the child molestation charges.
Judge Brantley Clark barred Joseph from having unsupervised contact with any person under 18.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-330-0226.
