One of the now-grown children from TLC’s hit show Jon & Kate Plus 8 has made bombshell abuse allegations against his reality TV star mom.
Collin Gosselin, 20, told the U.S. Sun that his mom would zip-tie his hands and feet together and toss him in a locked room inside their home’s basement, where she’d leave him to lay for hours in the dark.
That area of the basement was “specially-built” to house Collin, he claimed, with a bolted lock ensuring he couldn’t escape. He added that he was left in the room for an entire day or half-day “multiple times,” with his mom monitoring him using cameras installed inside.
“It was like a containment room, literally,” he said, “and it had a mattress on the floor and that’s how I lived.”
The horrific allegations emerged just weeks after TLC announced it planned to start airing old episodes of the reality show, 13 years after it was abruptly canceled by the network.
Collin Gosselin, second from left, smiles with his mom, Kate, and his siblings in a 2012 photoshoot.
Donna Svennevik/Getty Images
Collin, a sextuplet who was central to the show, alleged he was treated differently than his seven siblings. He accused his mom of sending him away to a psychiatric facility despite him having no documented mental health issues. The Sun reported that he showed “private medial records” that proved he doesn’t suffer from “several behavioral and psychiatric conditions” as him mom reportedly alleged.
Collin said his schooling was halted when he went to the psychiatric facility as a child, but said he’d preferred being there because it meant he was away from his mom’s “physically aggressive” behavior which could become “very abusive.”
The interview with the Sun was filmed, showing Collin become emotional as he read from a note he’d written in crayon to his dad to beg him dad to “save” him from the facility when he was 12.
“Dear dad, I’m not trying to trick you, but I still love you,” the note read. “I told mom I want to live with you and she said no. But right, she can’t choose for me. And I’m old enough now, I’m your son, not hers. She was abusive to me after I left her house. And I’m sorry, I’m sorry, take this to court. …dad, you’re my savior. Please help me. And let me meet Colleen. I’m counting on you to get me out of here.”
Collin explained that his “trick you” remark was likely because he was made to believe as a kid that people wouldn’t trust what he’d say.
“My mom always told me nobody would believe me,” he told the Sun.
Kate Gosselin’s sextuplets pose together. Collin and Hannah eventually moved to live with their dad, Jon Gosselin, after he won a custody battle.
Donna Svennevik/Getty Images
Kate, whose full name is Katie Irene Gosselin, made a lengthy Instagram post about Collin in 2023 alleging he had many “attacks/outbursts,” including one involving a weapon. She went on to allege that he was taken to a facility only after he received multiple psychiatric diagnoses.
Collin, who enlisted to be a U.S. Marine after graduating high school, said he was booted from the branch not longer after the post. Collin said he believed the post was the reason so he had an evaluation conducted by an independent doctor. That physician reportedly found that he did “not meet criteria for any of the diagnoses of concern in your evaluation request.”
The report added that Collin’s doctor did not “see evidence to indicate any other psychiatric diagnoses or behavioral disorder in his current functioning.”
Approached for comment about the allegations levied in the Sun, a lawyer for Kate said, “I don’t think the Marine Corps saw Kate’s post and decided to throw Collin out.”
That lawyer, Richard Puleo, added about the other allegations: “I can personally attest to this situation as I knew Kate and all eight of her children since they were small and I don’t believe Kate ever did anything intentionally to harm Collin. I think she did whatever she did to protect herself and her family from some of his troubled behavior as a child.”
Jon Gosselin, who eventually won custody of Collin and his sister Hannah, told the Sun he didn’t know of the basement room and other alleged abuse until after he’d regained custody of the two kids.
Jon said that Hannah backed up all of the horrible allegations brought forward by Collin during his childhood—treatment he said didn’t begin until after he and Kate split in 2009.
“I didn’t hear about that [abuse] until Hannah told me about it, once I got custody of Hannah,” he told the Sun. “I think once Hannah knew she was safe and not going back to mom’s she felt she could tell me. At that point Collin was institutionalized. He also started opening up to the doctor there and then because I became the legal parent, then they started telling me what he was telling the therapist and stuff. And it all matched up with what Hannah said.”
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