Collin Gosselin, 22, is promoting his memoir In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood. He details the extreme mental and physical abuse he suffered as a child while under the care of his mom, reality star Kate Gosselin. For years, Collin spent most of his time locked in a room with cameras in his family’s basement. When he was 11, Kate sent him to a psychiatric facility, telling the press that he suffered from behavioral and emotional problems. In his new book, Collin describes what happened and how he eventually got out of institutional care with the help of his father. Collin spoke with so many outlets, including NPR, Entertainment Tonight, Nightline, Jay Shetty and US Weekly. I’m going to quote USA Today here because they do a good job summing it up.
While “Jon & Kate Plus 8” star Collin Gosselin spent more than 20 months in a behavioral institution, he celebrated birthdays and holidays alone, as he watched dozens of kids come and go. As he entered eighth grade, he faced a sociocultural dilemma: he hadn’t heard of AirPods and didn’t know what a Snapchat streak was. “I was this awkward kid,” Gosselin tells USA TODAY. “I didn’t know anything. That’s where I really had to play catch up.”
Before Collin Gosselin entered Fairmount Behavioral Health system, audiences knew him as one of eight rambunctious siblings on “Jon & Kate Plus 8.” Cameras documented his early adolescence on the popular TLC show, and his parents Jon and Kate later rehashed their family drama on social media and in the tabloids. In Gosselin’s memoir, “In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood,” he tells his story on his own terms. Gosselin, a contestant on Fox’s “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test,” gives a raw, unfiltered take alleging he faced isolation from his siblings, physical abuse and verbal attacks that left emotional scars. The reality-TV star, now estranged from his mother, details his runaway attempt, his basement bedroom that locked from the outside and his treatment inside a behavioral institution.
“I knew that there was something abnormal about my life that needed to be talked about,” he tells USA TODAY. “As an adult, it just clicked and it was finally time to do what little Collin always wanted to do.”
Fairmount Behavioral Health system did not respond to calls and requests for comment. Kate Gosselin’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
You can read some of the biggest stories from his memoir on USA Today. I believe him and I’m so happy that he’s able to tell the world about his horrific childhood. Those of us who follow entertainment news know Collin’s story, but with this memoir and his book tour he’s been able to get the word out to a much wider audience. Collin said that he would not have gone public with this if his mother had not interfered with his plans to join the Marines. You might remember that he enlisted but was discharged for medical reasons because of Kate’s claims that Collin is mentally ill. This was her excuse for singling him out for abuse so it’s not surprising that she’s doubling down. In her only response to Collin’s memoir so far, she made comments on TikTok responding to supporters. She typically posts videos about her dogs.
“It should be illegal to defame someone that way, but I just wanted to say you are doing a great job keeping your head up through all of this,” the commenter wrote. “We love you!” Kate responded: “Thank you so much. I know rational logical ppl or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what’s going on here :).”
Elsewhere under the comment thread, Kate liked a message from a user who claimed “he” would “regret all of this someday” and alleging that he’d been “encouraged and enabled by other dysfunctional and mentally ill people.” They wrote that they were “sorry that you have to relive this over and over” and called the situation “gross.”
Kate claimed in the thread: “Exactly! I had nothing to do with it, except for consent because it was medically necessary.”
This is how abusers almost always try to discredit victims’ stories – by calling them crazy. Note that Kate has not issued an official response to Collin. She’s only vague posting about this because she doesn’t want to give a statement.
I hope Collin’s memoir is a bestseller and that he helps bring about sweeping change in how children are shown on camera. That includes the children of influencers. It should not be legal to show the faces of children under 13.
Photos are screenshots from ABC News
We all saw what a crappy parent she was on tv — imagine how she was off-camera.
I remember behind the scenes footage coming out of when they were on one of the morning talk shows. The children asked for water because it was hot under the lights, She yelled at them to stop asking. Then she asked for a bottle of water and drank it in front of them. And that was in front of an entire crew of people.
I believe him too and am happy he found his way from her looming over him. She’s such a hateful person and I hope more of her children eventually tell the truth about who she is.
It was always clear on the show that Kate was a truly odious person that should never have been in control of one child, let alone eight. Special Forces repeatedly includes contestants that grew up in reality tv shows. It’s so sad that these kids that whose families exploited them on screen end up doing more trashy reality tv, it’s like they don’t know how to live a life out of the spotlight and their parents are unwilling or unable to guide them to traditional careers. I guess at least this time it’s on his own terms and hopefully he gets it out of his system.
Well she caused his mental llness! She’s an evil witch!
Parenting can be brutal and every parent makes mistakes. And kids do not always have perfect recall or context. But her response to her fawning “fans” tells me everything I need to know about the situation. Her only response should be that she loves her son and wants the best for him. That’s it. But she is so completely self-absorbed that she needs to play the poor me card and engage with a bunch of strangers to gain sympathy. She’s vile and her own words prove it.
I can’t stand her. I hope his book brings to light child abuse in all its forms, no matter if you were on a reality TV show. I also am livid at all the asinine comments on other platforms directed towards him. He’s 22 and even if you’re 22, 42, 62 or 102, the emotional, physical and mental trauma inflicted on children at a young age can carry for a lifetime. She should be held accountable for her actions and, yes, I am going to throw Jon in here too, because he could have intervened, stepped up and did more to protect Colin and the rest of the children. He was just a child. And they were the adults, his parents, exploiting their kids for TV fame. I wish Colin all the healing and best for his life moving forward.
She is, and always has been, a shrew, a terrible person, and this was documented well on all her reality shows. Poor kid, the mistreatment and/or rejection must be the deepest wound to try to recover from. I wish him healing and a strong family of choice.
Do my fellow millennials and Gen X’rs remember the memoir “A Child Called It?” The mother made her young son live in the basement and severely abused him while his siblings lived a normal life above ground. I always found it so bizarre that a parent would single out a child like that but not treat the others that way. Anyway this reminds me of that.
I remember that book, harrowing. I also remember one of the brothers stating when the author was rescued, the mom turned the abuse on him. I think in a few years one of the other kids will reveal they were the target after Collin.
Having a scapegoat child and golden children is a common dynamic in many families. Of course, it’s taken to extremes here. But even in my relatively “normal” family my emotionally immature parents had a child they called “easy” and “good natured” and one they called “difficult”. It’s toxic even in its mildest form, and horrific here.
It’s extremely common unfortunately, but the scapegoat child isn’t usually locked in a basement. The scapegoating is emotional neglect and verbal abuse, harder things for a young child to even recognize as abuse or explain to other adults what’s happening.
I never read it but I remember it. Friends talked about it. That was back when we had a Monoculture.
It’s probably a good thing he didn’t go into the military given his CPTSD, but she is trash for continuing to proxy abuse him even after he’s long left the home. Horrific to think how much TLC witnessed off camera and did nothing about.
One of the only valid arguments I see for the use of AI in movies is removing children under the age of 14 from financially incentivized content. I honestly believe social media should be banned from monetizing anything featuring minors under 16 altogether, and movies and tv should be held to similar standards. Even with the unions and other protections in place, it’s just obviously too easy for children to be exploited.
I’m more than halfway through the audiobook and have teared up more than once. This is one side of a complicated story, but I believe Collin’s account. This poor kid’s formative years were stolen from him. Where is the acknowledgement from Kate that being in front of a TV camera that young could cause harm? She doesn’t have to admit to wrongdoing; but maybe fess up about how the cameras negatively impacted you and your kids in a few ways, regardless of the good it may have also brought.