After years of being gossip column fodder, Jon and Kate Gosselin’s 18-year-old son Collin is speaking out about what he thinks led to the fracture in his family.
The teen rose to fame on the reality series “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” which premiered in 2007. The show featured the parents raising their eight children, including a set of twins and sextuplets. Jon and Kate divorced in 2009.
Collin is one of the six sextuplets and is now describing what happened with his mom after she had him institutionalized for behavioral issues. His father, Jon, fought to have him removed from the facility in 2018, and the teen has lived with him ever since.
“After being [in the facility], I didn’t have a relationship with her,” Collin told Entertainment Tonight. “Even before [being] there, I don’t think we had much of a relationship and I think that just kept tearing it even more down.”
Besides his mental health journey, Collin said being involved with reality TV was a huge factor contributing to stressed relationships in their family.
“I want to believe it was because of TV and what being in the public eye does to a family. I think it tore us apart,” he explained. “It gave us less time to actually be together as a family, [and] more time to be in the public eye.”
The reality star said his childhood “was worse than what you would say the average teenage kid goes through with their parent.”
“I came to the conclusion that everybody has their own agenda, you know?” Collin explained. “My mom had her own agenda, and I don’t know exactly what that was. But I was put in a tough spot and my agenda was to make it out on top of that tough spot.”
“It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have a relationship,” he continued. “I think every son wants to have a relationship with their mom. But I’m doing very well.”
The teen said he hopes to reconnect with Kate in the future.
“Yes, it would be ideal,” Collin said to the idea of repairing his relationship with his mom.
Ultimately, Collin said he’s happy despite having struggles. “I want to say that in life we all go through hard things. We all get knocked down, we all experience really, really difficult things,” he said. “But don’t sit around and mourn and cry about it, address the situation you’re in and fix it and come out on top of it. Because resilience is a really important thing.”
“My one message to everybody, to the world, in general, is just be kind to people,” he concluded. “It’s really not that hard, you know? Be kind, talk to people, hear other people’s stories, just spread kindness.”