Jon Gosselin has come to the defense of his 22-year-old son, Collin, following the publication of a memoir containing serious allegations about his childhood and his mother, Kate Gosselin.
The former reality TV father praised Collin’s book, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, while rejecting Kate’s suggestion in a TikTok comment that her son is mentally ill.
“First and foremost, I couldn’t be more proud of my son’s heartbreaking memoir and his mission to help other victims of abuse,” Jon said in a statement to Us Weekly on Thursday.
He added, “Also, let me be very clear: If you continue to falsely label my son Collin as ‘mentally ill,’ you will be held accountable. As you know, Collin has been evaluated by multiple independent psychiatrists, and that narrative is proven categorically untrue.”
Jon, 49, argued that continuing to make what he called false statements about Collin’s mental health could harm his son’s reputation, credibility and future.
“Consider this fair warning: The days of using mental health to discredit and silence my son are over,” he said.
Released Tuesday, Collin’s memoir recounts what he describes as mistreatment during his childhood, including Kate’s decision to place him in a psychiatric facility in 2016. He alleges that she visited him only once and told him harshly, “You broke our family.”
Collin further claims that, at age 12, he was confined in what he describes as “a small holding” cell for two years before being sent to the institution. According to his account, the arrangement separated him from his brothers and sisters.
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The memoir also alleges that Kate directed her eight children — sextuplets Alexis, Aaden, Leah, Joel, Hannah and Collin, along with twins Cara and Madelyn, now 25 — to behave in specific ways while cameras were rolling for the TLC series Jon and Kate Plus 8.
Collin writes that his mother placed strict demands on the children when they were toddlers and imposed severe punishments when she believed they had disobeyed.
“If we got even the littlest bit of dirt on our clothes, we’d be stripped down and punished,” he writes.
Kate, 51, responded on TikTok after a supporter described Collin’s allegations as “terrible lies” and argued that defaming someone in a memoir should be illegal.
“Rational logical [people] or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what’s going on here,” Kate wrote in the comment.
She also indicated approval of another comment claiming that Collin would eventually “regret all of this” and accusing him of being “encouraged and enabled by other dysfunctional and mentally ill people.”
In an exclusive interview with Page Six on Tuesday, Collin said he is considering legal action against his mother over the alleged abuse, including the possibility of filing a police report.
“I have the grounds to do so,” Collin said. “And this justice is very important to me for all children to know that they should absolutely fight and they should actually look into what has been done to them and never stop fighting it.”
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