KATE Gosselin has been pictured for the first time since her son Collin revealed the dark sides of growing up in the reality star’s care in a bombshell interview with The U.S. Sun.
The Jon & Kate Plus 8 mom looked relaxed while playing with a friend’s baby despite her estranged son’s swathes of allegations shattering the family’s cheery facade.
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In the photos exclusively obtained by The U.S. Sun, Kate, 49, can be seen visiting a friend near her home outside Charlotte, North Carolina.
A cheery Kate held a tub of animal crackers and beamed as she held a friend’s baby outside on the lawn.
Video of the play date shows the television star cooing and making faces at the baby while the crew of friends caught up and enjoyed the fall weather.
Kate’s carefree behavior comes as a shock as she’s been accused of physically and mentally abusing her son Collin in exclusive interviews with The U.S. Sun.
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The mom became a nationwide sensation after she gave birth to twins, followed by sextuplets, and made a popular reality television show with TLC about raising them alongside her husband, Jon.
However, just two years after the show premiered, Jon and Kate split, which made the mom spiral out of control, a heartbroken Collin, 20, claimed to The U.S. Sun.
“It was rough. I definitely went through it a lot as a kid from my mother’s end. So it was tough,” he said in an exclusive interview.
Collin opened up more about the toll it took on him and how it impacted his relationship with his own siblings.
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“I just remember being isolated from my siblings and constantly taking the fall for her emotions or the touch things going on in her life.
“I just remember being a scapegoat and always taking the brute end of things,” he added.
Collin claims Kate zip-tied his arms and legs and locked him in a basement room with cameras after he was misdiagnosed with a barrage of mental health issues.
Medical records obtained by The U.S. Sun show he was institutionalized for bipolar disorder, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and many other life-altering illnesses as a child.
However, Collin claims he was a normal boy and showed recent doctor’s visits that granted him a clean bill of health.
Kate used Collin’s diagnoses to treat him differently, he said, keeping him away from his beloved siblings.
At just 11 years old, Collin was admitted to a psychiatric facility for over two years and only got one visit from his mom.
“I didn’t get to play or hang out with my siblings. I didn’t have a childhood with them, and I never really had a relationship with them growing up,” he said.
“My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement,” he said
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“She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside.
“And I was there, you know, most of the day because I didn’t go to school after a certain point.
“So most of the day I was in that room and I was away from my siblings and I never really went outside.
“I never played with them. I was kept there. It was literally containment.”
HEARTWRENCHING PLEA
Kate has defended herself against Collin’s accusations through her lawyer, Richard Puleo.
“If Kate did the things that Collin is accusing Kate of, she would have been investigated by the authorities and prosecuted,” Puleo told The U.S. Sun.
Puleo said she did nothing harmful to Collin and only acted to protect herself and her family.
Collin and his sister Hannah now live with their father Jon.
Collin graduated high school and enlisted in the military to pursue his lifelong dream of serving in the Marines.
However, in August of last year, he was dismissed for “non-disclosure of pre-enlistment history.”
One month before the shock dismissal, Kate had shared a lengthy post about Collin where she called him “very troubled” and accused him of having severe mental health issues.
Jon Gosselin’s Relationship Timeline
Below is a timeline of Jon Gosselin’s partners since he rose to fame on the TLC series Jon & Kate Plus 8.
- Jon married Kate Gosselin, the mother of his sextuplets and twin daughters, in June 1999. Amidst their reality show run, Kate filed for divorce, which was finalized in December 2009. Kate was granted full legal custody of their children.
- After a string of flings, Jon began dating Liz Jannetta in 2012, which lasted about two years. They even appeared in Season 4 of VH1’s reality series Couple’s Therapy to work through their differences.
- Jon’s next serious relationship was with Colleen Conrad, whom he’d known since childhood. The former couple dated for about seven years before parting ways in August 2021.
- The TV personality moved on with his current partner, Stephanie Lebo, a few months later. They kept their relationship under wraps for a while before going public in August 2023 in an exclusive interview with The U.S. Sun. Jon revealed that he and Stephanie were ‘really happy and in love.’
Collin believes this directly affected his military career and is now working to re-qualify for service.
Still, he’s showing his defiance by requesting to compete on the reality show Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test after his mom crashed out of the show on episode one.
Despite his traumatic claims about the abuse he suffered under Kate’s care, Collin believes he can reconcile with her and his estranged brothers and sisters.
“So first and foremost, my relationship with my brothers and sisters is of top priority to me,” Collin told The U.S. Sun exclusively.
“And I think the only way that my mother and I would be able to reconnect and fix our relationship in the future is, if she would just come forward with the truth and all the things that she has kept under wraps.
“And you know the many times that she’s tried to soil my name and my father’s name. I just would want her to come forward with the truth.
“[But] Yes, that door would be open. 100 percent.”
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