Jon Gosselin is one proud father in the wake of his son Collin Gosselin’s debut tell-all memoir.
“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, 49, exclusively told Us in a statement on Thursday, October 15, referring to Collin’s claims in his book, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, that he was abused by mom Kate Gosselin as a child.
Jon — who rose to fame while starring on TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus 8 alongside his now-ex wife, Kate, 51, their twin daughters and sextuplets — also clapped back at allegations that Collin, 22, has mental health issues.
“Also, let me be very clear: If you continue to falsely label my son Collin as ‘mentally ill,’ you will be held accountable,” he continued. “As you know, Collin has been evaluated by multiple independent psychiatrists, and that narrative is proven categorically untrue.”
The former reality star noted, “Repeating false claims about his mental health is damaging to his reputation, his credibility and his future.”
Jon concluded his statement by backing his son and the allegations made in his book.
“Consider this fair warning: The days of using mental health to discredit and silence my son are over,” he said.
Jon’s rep Adriane Schwartz, meanwhile, tells Us, “Jon has remained quiet to give Collin the space to share his story in his own voice. He fully supports his son and is incredibly proud of him. Collin deserves to be heard and treated with respect, and Jon stands firmly beside him.”
Jon did not directly name who his comments were directed toward in his statement. However, Kate previously addressed “mental illness” in a comment on her TikTok earlier this week. In response to a fan who told Kate she was “doing a great job keeping [her] head up,” the matriarch wrote, “I know rational logical [people] or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what’s going on here. I had nothing to do with it.”
Like his father, Collin was thrust into the spotlight on Jon & Kate Plus 8, which debuted in 2007 and ended in 2009 after five seasons.
On the show, Jon and Kate showed what it was really like raising twin daughters, Mady and Cara, now 26, and sextuplets Collin, Hannah, Leah, Alexis, Joel and Aaden, now 22.
Jon and Kate’s messy custody battle became national news after their 2009 divorce. Ultimately, Collin and sister Hannah chose to live with their father, following a series of alleged traumatic events for Collin, in which he claimed that Kate sent him to a psychiatric hospital without telling Jon.
Collin has also claimed that Kate was physically and emotionally abusive toward him from a young age and it only got worse when he rebelled against being on the TLC series. Us has reached out to Kate regarding her son’s memoir and numerous abuse claims but has not heard back at the time of publication. She has previously and consistently denied any wrongdoing.
“She [stayed] for about 20 minutes,” Collin exclusively claimed to Us in his cover story of Kate’s visit to the hospital one year into his stay when he was 12. “Our conversation consisted of [her saying], ‘Collin, you destroyed our family.’ I was devastated.”
Collin told Us his experience with his father was very different. He recalled Jon removing him from the hospital in 2018 after he discovered his location.
“There was a point where we both were like, my god, like I was like wow, I didn’t know that you were like going to court and trying to find out where it was. I didn’t know that. We were just both kept in the dark,” Collin told Us. “He didn’t know where was and I didn’t know that he was trying or that he wanted anything to do with me. Because last I was told he didn’t want anything to do with me.”
The Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test contestant explained, “So there was like this huge it was this crazy moment when I was like, ‘I was told I wasn’t allowed to visit you,’ and he was told I didn’t want to visit him and we just kinda sat down and hashed it all out and realized that we both wanted the same thing the whole time.”
Collin claimed that when his parents got divorced, “My dad was sent out of the home. I was told all these horrible things about him. I mean, that he was like the worst person that ever walked this planet. I mean, that’s how my mother made it sound.”
Once he was able to see his dad again years later, he told Us it was clear that he “wasn’t this horrible monster that I’ve been told that he was.”
“We were like two broken people trying to rebuild a relationship from scratch,” Collin said, reflecting on his teenage years with Jon. “I was like, ‘Who is this guy?’ and he felt like, ‘I don’t know how to be there for my son after everything he’s gone through.’ We worked on that, and now we’re closer than ever. Good things take time.”
In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood is available for purchase online and in bookstores.
