Jed Duggar is under fire for making a croaker of a joke in the latest pregnancy announcement to come from the fecund clan.
“She tested positive, but not for COVID,” Duggar, 22, wrote in the caption of the otherwise fairly anodyne pregnancy announcement on Instagram. “And then there were 3. Baby Duggar. Spring ’22,” read the in-picture text announcing that he and wife Katey are expecting their first child.
Though the comments were largely swarmed with supporters and well-wishers, “Without a Crystal Ball” host Katie Joy went after Duggar for the quip, in the context of the dire state of the coronavirus pandemic in Arkansas, where the Duggars hail from.
According to the New York Times coronavirus database, Arkansas has nearly 465,000 reported cases of COVID-19.
Joy also noted that Duggar’s quip appeared in a photo from their announcement only appearing in the YouTube version. “Katey & Jed shared this photo in their YouTube video but not on Instagram. Which I’m confident was intentional,” she said.
“Cringey caption bro,” one commenter wrote, while another added, “a pregnancy announcement making a joke out of covid. How fun.”
“Congratulations on your bundle of joy on the other hand you might want to change the caption not very sensitive to the time you know since millions are dying,” a commenter noted.
Jed and Katey got hitched in Arkansas in April and revealed in their announcement video that she discovered she was pregnant after taking test in a Walmart bathroom.
But the Duggars have bigger worries than Jed’s cratering prospects of making it as a stand-up: The lynchpin of the family’s empire, TLC’s “Counting On,” was canceled in the fallout of eldest Duggar son Josh’s child-porn arrest this spring.
The 33-year-old Duggar’s trial was originally set to begin in July, but a federal judge ruled in June that the trial could be postponed until Nov. 30 after his defense team brought in a new expert to review the evidence.