Kate Gosselin is defending herself in the comments section of her social media posts.
The 51-year-old former reality TV star responded to comments on her recent TikTok posts referencing claims her 22-year-old son, Collin, made against her, alleging she “forced” him and his seven siblings apart and “pitted them against each other” as they were growing up.
He recently announced his upcoming memoir, titled, “In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood.” Gosselin has consistently denied all allegations made against her by Collin, doubling down in the comments section of her TikTok videos.
“If you are 100% certain that the accusations against you are lies, my suggestion would be to take him to court and sue him for defamation!” one fan asked. She responded, “”I can’t bc I’m a public figure. Rules are different unfortunately. Or I def would!”
She continued defending herself in the comments, responding to another with, “Malice is one of the hardest things to prove. I tried :(. The rules are different for ppl in the public eye.”
Gosselin also shared that she “consulted a high power LA attorney” in the past “when other ppl were putting crazy stuff out there,” and that is what they told her. “The courts don’t honor it if you’re in the public eye :(” she added.
She later responded to another comment, saying, “Sadly, Only parents who have a mentally ill child understand! It’s so tough and I’m learning that ppl have NO ability to understand unless they’ve been through it themselves.”
In response to his mom’s statements, Collin doubled down on his allegations of abuse, taking to his Instagram stories to share she allegedly used to hit him.
“Never forget the fact that my mom would write in her diary how she ‘had to pray to God to stop hitting me’ (this was while I was 2 years old by the way),” he alleged. “And this is why using my voice to put these things in the light is so important.”
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Collin first spoke out against his mother in 2022, telling Entertainment Tonight that he was estranged from his mother and that the estrangement began after she sent him to live at the Fairmount Behavioral Health System – a psychiatric hospital located in Philadelphia – without telling anyone in the family, when he was 12 years old.
While Gosselin claimed she sent him to the facility because he was diagnosed with a behavior disorder, and she couldn’t meet his needs, however, during an episode of Vice’s “Dark Side of the 2000s” in 2023, Collin alleged he was sent there so that he couldn’t tell people about her “abusive” behavior towards him, adding she sent him “somewhere where [he] wouldn’t be able to put the secrets out.”
After spending two years in the facility, Collin left to go live with his father, who has been divorced from Gosselin since 2009, after his father filed for and was awarded full custody of him in December 2018. Aside from Hannah, who also chose to live with their father, Collin is estranged from his siblings, in addition to being estranged from his mother.
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The 22-year-old’s tell-all memoir is set to release in October. Collin posted a cover of the book — which features him as a child with his mom covering his mouth with her hand — writing, “For a long time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever tell this story.”
“Growing up, millions of people watched my life on television. People felt like they knew me. They knew my family. They watched me grow up. But there was so much they never saw,” he said. “For years, I kept those experiences to myself. Some because I was afraid. Some because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. And some because I just wasn’t ready.”
Collin added, “Writing this book forced me to revisit some of the hardest moments of my life, but it also gave me something I’ve been searching for for a long time: my voice. This isn’t the story people think they know. It’s the story I’ve lived.”
