Jon Gosselin, Collin Gosselin & Hannah Gosselin to Star in Netflix Doc
Jon Gosselin Defends Son Collin Gosselin Over "Heartbreaking" Memoir
Netflix is now plus three Gosselins.
Nearly two decades after viewers were introduced to the family through Jon & Kate Plus 8 ended, Jon Gosselin and kids Collin Gosselin and Hannah Gosselin are prepared to get real once more in an upcoming Netflix documentary. And they aren’t planning to hold back, diving into the trials and tribulations that have plagued their family in the decade since the TLC series ended.
"Years later, conflicting accounts have emerged from within the family itself—competing memories of the same childhood, the same home, the same spotlight," the streamer teased in an Oct. 21 press release. "The new documentary takes a closer look, piecing together the story from every angle: The children who grew up on camera, the adults who built a brand around them, and the audience that couldn't look away."
"It's an intimate look," the description read, "at how real life became a phenomenon the world thought it knew."
However, the documentary and its participants highlight the divide in the family over the last several years. Jon’s ex Kate Gosselin as well as the former couple’s other six kids—26-year-old twins Mady and Cara, plus sextuplets Alexis, Aaden, Leah and Joel—aren’t slated to participate in the project as of yet. Of course, that’s not exactly a shock given that Collin remains estranged from all of his siblings except Hannah.
For his part, Collin stepped out of the shadow to detail his perspective of his upbringing in his explosive memoir In the Shadow of Eight, during which he maintained he was exploited as a child through his work on the show.
Netflix/Gosselin Family
"I was the only one who voiced it," the sextuplet recently told E! News during an exclusive interview, "and my mom retaliated against me because I wasn't willing to give in and be a part of the paycheck and the program."
Collin also accused Kate, 51, of abuse, recounting how she allegedly separated him from his siblings and even once bound his wrists and ankles with zip ties before later sending him to a mental health facility.
Netflix/Gosselin Family
"Most days, I spent about 70 percent of my time locked in that room," he recalled. "The rest was split between meeting with my teacher, eating alone without my siblings, cleaning up after everyone or pretending to be happy when the cameras came around. That was my life."
E! News reached out to reps for Kate and TLC about the accusations in Collin's book and has not heard back. However, this past June, Kate referred to her son's accusations as "ridiculous" in the comment section of her TikTok page.
And earlier this month, Kate responded to a supporter's comment calling out "terrible lies" in Collin's book by writing on TikTok, "Thank you so much. I know logical ppl or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what's going on here."
While fans wait for more updates on the new Gosselin doc, keep reading for every bombshell revelation made in Collin's recently released memoir In the Shadow of Eight.
Photo by Donna Svennevik/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Collin Gosselin Says His Mom Separated Him From His Siblings
On a 2015 episode of Kate Plus 8—the Jon & Kate Plus 8 spinoff Kate Gosselin led following her 2009 divorce from Jon Gosselin—TLC viewers watched as twins Mady Gosselin and Cara Gosselin moved into their own rooms in Kate's 7,500-square-foot estate, while their younger sisters Leah Gosselin, Alexis Gosselin and Hannah Gosselin inhabited a shared upstairs room and brothers Collin Gosselin, Joel Gosselin and Aaden Gosselin made over a basement space.
"It was like a slumber party every night," Collin recounts of that first week in his memoir Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood. "Then, one day, I was told by my mom I’d be moving out. An air mattress appeared in the unfinished part of the basement, shoved into the far back corner like an afterthought."
Coming on the heels of him being cut out of weekend visits with his dad (he was told Jon didn't want to see him; Jon was told the opposite) and frequently isolated (he recalls one night where he was sent to bed while his siblings watched TV with Kate), having to live next to their deep freezers felt particularly cold.
"I was part of a plan," he notes of the punishments, he attributed to his unwillingness to play ball on camera "I just didn’t know what it was."
E! News reached out to reps for Kate and TLC about the accusations in Collin's book and has not heard back. However, this past June, Kate referred to her son's accusations as "ridiculous" in the comment section of her TikTok page.
Amy Sussman/WireImage for Discovery Communications
Collin Gosselin Claims His Parents Kate Gosselin and Jon Gosselin Were Offered Millions to Stay Married
As Jon and Kate's marriage began to unravel, claims Collin, Dr. Phil host Phil McGraw was teaming with TLC "to negotiate a deal to keep their marriage together for cameras."
So, when the couple shared their plans to divorce in January 2009, writes Collin, "the network responded by offering my parents $2 million to stay in the marriage and pretend the relationship was intact for the sake of the show’s longevity." Turning down the offer, Jon told the Daily Mail in 2019, "I couldn't live with myself. I couldn't live a lie."
E! News reached out to reps for Kate and TLC, but they did not respond. They also declined to comment on Daily Mail's previous story. A rep for McGraw called the allegations "false" in a statement to Us Weekly. Noting the talk show host didn't have "any direct or indirect interest, financial or otherwise," in the series, the rep added, "Neither Dr. Phil, nor anyone associated with his show ever facilitated, encouraged, participated in or knew anything about any payments to the Gosselins by the other network as alleged by their son Collin, who Dr. Phil has never met."
Photo by Donna Svennevik/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Collin Gosselin Says He Spent 70 Percent of His Time Locked in His Basement Bedroom
According to Collin, some 14 complaints were made against his mom to Children and Youth Services, one of them coming after he turned up to his fourth-grade classroom with a noticeably injured ear.
Not long after, "my mom pulled me from school," he wrote. "She told me it was temporary. That it was for my own good. That people were 'asking questions' and we needed to keep things calm for a while. I didn’t argue or ask how long. I'd learned that asking questions made things worse."
Collin said he was also banned from playing with the family's LEGO sets. But perhaps the biggest change, Collin alleged, was the walls Kate had built around his basement air mattress with two security cameras he had to speak through if he needed to be let out to use the bathroom.
"Most days, I spent about 70 percent of my time locked in that room," writes Collin. "The rest was split between meeting with my teacher, eating alone without my siblings, cleaning up after everyone or pretending to be happy when the cameras came around. That was my life."
Photo by Donna Svennevik/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Collin Gosselin Claims Mom Kate Gosselin Told His Siblings He Was a Bad Kid
To explain why Collin was no longer attending school with them or even joining the rest of the family to eat dinner, Kate would tell his siblings he was troubled, Collin writes.
"'Collin needs more help than you kids,' she would say right in front of me," he details in his book. "'You and your friends at school aren't bad like your brother.' They were repeatedly told that I was unpredictable, violent, beyond help. They grew up around me as if I was a cautionary tale. They were children themselves. How could they know to doubt her?"
Kate previously told People that Collin received "multiple psychiatric diagnoses" and inpatient psychiatric treatment in response to "unpredictable and violent behavior." But Jon claimed to the Daily Mail in 2019 that Collin had no known diagnosed medical condition other than common ADHD.
Michael Simon/Getty Images & Noel Vasquez/Getty Images
Collin Gosselin Alleges Mom Kate Gosselin Once Bound His Wrists and Ankles With Zip Ties
Having tired of his basement existence by age 11, Collin plotted his escape, using his twin-size air mattress to climb out the tiny basement window. But with nowhere to go—"It had been almost two years since I'd seen my dad"—he returned home.
Once there, his mattress was gone, as were the few books he had. Then, Collin detailed, Kate allegedly came in with zip ties for his wrists and ankles.
"Once I was bound, she grabbed me by my wrists, pulled me up into a standing position and then threw me down, slamming my tailbone against the hard floor," Collin alleges, adding she told him he was a burden to the family. "She went on, calling me crazy, dangerous and other names nobody should ever call a child, things that stuck long after the pain faded."
A rep for Kate didn’t respond to E! News' request for comment. But her attorney previously told The Sun, "There's always two sides to every story and when things take place in the past, it's hard to determine because people have differing recollections and perspectives."
However, his take, he added, was "if Kate did the things that Collin is accusing Kate of, she would have been investigated by the authorities and prosecuted."
Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
Collin Gosselin Recounts Being Physically Restrained and Sedated at a Mental Health Clinic
After his escape attempt, Collin claims he was transported to Fairmount Behavioral Health System mere days before his 12th birthday. Throughout his 21-month stay in the mental health clinic—where most kids stayed just days or weeks, he claims—he was given daily medication. "My brain had started feeling soft and cloudy, like someone had turned a dimmer switch down," he details. "I found myself zoning out, feeling like a zombie."
During one incident, 18 months into his stay, Collin alleges he was physically restrained and injected with a medication he dubbed "booty juice" after asking administrators why he was still there. After another, a staffer bent his wrist in such a way that "a violent, searing pain shot up my arm, so intense it made my knees buckle." (E! News reached out to Fairmount Behavioral Health System, but has not heard back.)
Throughout his nearly two-year stay, Collin says his mom visited once.
Instagram/Jon Gosselin
Collin Gosselin Says He Smuggled a Letter to Dad Jon Gosselin to Get Out of the Mental Health Clinic
With his mom and siblings no longer taking his calls from Fairmount, said Collin, he hatched a plan to reconnect with his dad. After hitting it off with one of his roommates, Collin confided in him about his reality star past.
Writing a letter to his father in crayon while hiding in a bathroom stall, Collin claimed he asked his roommate to find a way to deliver it. Soon after, he was discharged to a residential facility where he was able to once-again attend school and slowly weaned off his medications.
It was there that he connected with his dad for the first time, Jon sharing in that initial phone call that he had plans to bring him home.
As Jon later detailed to Collin—who ended up moving in with him, sister Hannah and Jon's then-girlfriend Colleen Conrad—he had spent years trying to track him down. Then he received Collin's letter and filed an emergency petition with the court to modify custody.
Collin Gosselin Says He Hasn't Seen Most of His Siblings Since He Was 15
Other than Hannah, Collin has only seen his siblings once since leaving Kate's home at age 11—a court-mandated visit just before his 15th birthday. "It was a way to keep the kids together, despite being split between two households," Collin reasons, noting the meet-up started out awkwardly before they all teamed up to best the amusement center's games.
But, as Leah, Alexis, Joel and Aaden moved toward the exit, "No one turned back," Collin recounts. "And I haven't seen them since."
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