Reality star Kate Gosselin is under fire after her son Collin Gosselin made shocking child abuse claims, revealing how his mom allegedly kept him locked in the basement as a child.
In a video interview with The U.S. Sun, Collin opened up about abuse he claims he suffered at the hands of his mother. He also read out a letter he sent to his dad, Jon Gosselin, seven years ago where he begged to be saved from a mental health facility.
“My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement,” Collin told the publication. “She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside.”
“It had a mattress on the floor, and that was how I lived,” he added, referring to the area as a “containment room.”
He continued, “When my mother would put me in that room multiple times, she had zip-tied my hands and feet together and bolt-locked the door, turned the lights off and had cameras there just watching me.”
Collin, now 20, starred alongside his five sextuplet siblings and twin sisters in the hit TLC reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8 (later named Kate Plus 8 following Jon and Kate’s divorce in 2009), which ran from April 4, 2007 to July 24, 2017. The network recently began re-airing old episodes of the show.
In his interview with The U.S. Sun, Collin shared his medical records, detailing how he was diagnosed with autism, ADHD, bipolar, PTSD, oppositional defiant disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child — he added that a recent mental health evaluation found he no longer has these diagnoses.
After being put on various psychiatric medications, Collin was eventually taken to Fairmount Behavioral Health System in Pennsylvania as an inpatient when he was 11 years old. It was while there he wrote a letter to his dad begging to be saved.
Speaking to The U.S. Sun, Jon said he had no idea about his ex-wife’s allegedly abusive behavior until he obtained custody of their daughter Hannah. He obtained custody of Collin in 2018.
“The room in the basement where she kept Collin is still there,” Jon stated. “My friends’ in-laws bought our house, and one time they asked me ‘Why is there a room in the basement with a bed and a lock on the outside?…It must have been terrifying for [Collin].”
Kate’s attorney, Richard Puleo, told the outlet that his client never “intentionally” harmed Collin, noting she “did what she did to protect herself and her family” from her son’s “troubled behavior.”
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“My son Collin, whom I love with all my heart, has received multiple psychiatric diagnoses over the years,” Kate told People in a statement in July 2023. “For the safety of myself, his brothers and sisters and for his own well-being, he was placed in a facility following years of outpatient treatment which proved insufficient for his needs.”
Kate added, “The decision to admit him was made by emergency room doctors following one of his many attacks/outbursts — this one involving his use of a weapon.”
“Collin’s distorted perception of reality is one of the many issues that he has always struggled with,” she claimed. “As many people who have family members grappling with mental health issues can attest, it is rarely and sadly surprising when complete fabrications occur, and this is just another heartbreaking facet of this fight.”
She continued, “All measures that were taken in our home were at the explicit recommendation of his pediatric psychiatrist and/or his team of specialists and were put into place to safeguard every member of our family, our friends as well as our family pets.”
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