It's no secret that the marriage between Jon Gosselin and Kate Gosselin didn't exactly end on good terms. Their tumultuous split and heated custody battle played out in public throughout the years. While it seems that everyone has moved on and is content with life as it is, Jon is now able to speak out in ways he never has before. Over a decade after their divorce, that's exactly what he did.
Jon appeared on Dr. Oz in 2019 to share his side of the story. While on the show, he made some serious accusations against his ex-wife. He claimed that Kate was not only abusive to him but to their eight children, as well. He asserted that twins, Mady and Cara, as well as sextuplets Hannah, Collin, Joel, Alexis, Leah, and Aaden have suffered greatly from their mother's mistreatment. He even claimed that the sextuplets are emotionally and mentally stunted as a result of their mother's abuse. Kate has denied all claims made.
In recent months, Jon Gosselin has been opening up about his former marriage to Kate Gosselin. Jon alleges he's able to speak more freely now that legal implications for speaking out have expired. It's been 10 years since the couple divorced.
"Kate is not doing the shows for her family, Kate is doing it for herself," he said in an interview with Daily Mail TV. "She’s narcissistic and selfish. That’s it. Period. All of this is for her."
"I know my children have suffered abuse and I know one day they’re going to tell their own story," Jon proclaimed in the bombshell interview. At that time, he also discussed how Kate's behavior has impacted Collin. After years of living in a facility for special needs children, Collin now lives with Jon.
Jon, who also has custody of Hannah, is now opening up about how Kate's treatment has impacted his relationship with his kids. "There is a lot of stuff that happened abuse-wise, mental and physical. Even though they're 15, they might be like 12 mentally," Jon explained.
"I have to reparent my kids," Jon explained. "The mental abuse, the [parental] alienation, just the put-downs. … Isolation is a huge one. I make them join clubs and go to dances and football games."
Jon also shared that he, as well as the kids, go to therapy. It was the desire for bits of normalcy such as this that made a co-parenting relationship between him and Kate impossible, Jon alleges. "We don’t have a relationship right now," he noted.
"We don’t talk, nothing," he explained. "The only time I see my ex-wife is in court. It’s just never going to happen due to personality disorders and everything else. We just have different aspects of how we want to parent. In two more years, we are going to have a lot of adults."
Jon believes that Kate suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. "She wants to be right, everything she says, she wants to be right," he noted. "So if she lies, she wants them to believe her lies."
Jon believes that Collin's unnecessary institutionalization is a primary example of that. "She, Kate, institutionalized him without a diagnosis, which created a diagnosis. He did not need to be in an institution," he explained. "Just because he was a difficult child did not mean he needed to be sent away against my will, against my rights."
Getting Collin back and obtaining custody wasn't easy for Jon. "I did not know where he went," he revealed. "It took me two and a half years to find him. It took me another year to get him out."
Today, Jon says Collin is thriving. He said that Collin has joined the US Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps at his high school. He's enjoying his new home with Jon, Hannah, and Jon's girlfriend, Colleen.
Jon believes that the only reason his marriage with Kate failed was that he didn't want to be on TV anymore. "She did not want to be married anymore … because I didn’t want to film anymore. I wasn’t part of the business model anymore," Jon said.
"The network thought I was nuts," he continued. "They actually hired me a therapist and a psychiatrist. Because I would give up millions of dollars not to film and just go live a normal life."
Kate refused to comment on specific claims but said this to Today: "I have consistently made it a rule never to respond to Jon’s delusional ramblings, and I will not break that rule now. However, at some point soon, I look forward to making sure the absolute truth about our family is known."
