Collin Gosselin is opening up about his complicated family dynamics ahead of his tell-all memoir.
“I think [my sister] Hannah [Gosselin] is very sentimental and reminiscent, in a way, and I think she wants to still have a piece of that family,” Gosselin, 22, said in an interview first conducted over a year ago, but re-shared on Saturday, June 27, via YouTube ahead of Collin’s book. “And I even look back at it like this — during my parents’ divorce Hannah was always so much closer with my dad. But now that I look at it I don’t think that it was that she was closer with my dad, I think she just wanted both parents in her life. And it makes a lot of sense and that literally is normal — that’s a normal thing kids want that.”
Collin and Hannah, also 22, are two of Kate Gosselin and ex-husband Jon Gosselin’s eight children, made famous by their reality TV series Jon & Kate Plus 8. The former couple also share twins Mady and Cara, both 25, and the remaining sextuplets Alexis, Leah, Joel and Aiden, all 22.
The pair finalized their divorce in December 2009 after 10 years of marriage. Jon eventually took custody of Hannah and Collin, while Kate retained custody of the pair’s remaining six children.
From Collin’s point of view, before Hannah went to live with their father she wanted to be “closer” to him. After living with him, he believes she shifted her focus back to her mom.
“Now that she’s with my dad and she knows that my dad loves her and he’s never gonna leave her or throw her out on a limb or anything like that, I think she wants to now fix that relationship with my mom,” he alleged. “What hurts me on that is that Hannah wants to fix the relationship with my mom — Hannah wants to get into the emotional and the feelings part of it because she cares about people.”
He continued, “For my mom, it’s going on social media. It’s going on TikTok and saying, ‘Oh, hi, just talked to Hannah today. … So for Hannah it’s a relationship, and for my mom it’s a PR stunt and that’s what really hurts me.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Kate for comment on her son’s claims.
Collin’s come as he promotes his upcoming tell-all memoir, detailing life as a child under the harsh spotlight of reality TV and his family’s ongoing estrangement. Us exclusively revealed the cover of the book, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, earlier this month.
“This book is about truth, survival, resilience and finding my voice after years of being silenced,” Collin told Us. “If my story helps even one person feel less alone or gives them the courage to tell their own, then every difficult page was worth writing.”
As for where he stands with Hannah as she continues to mend her relationship with her mother, Collins says he’ll always be in his sibling’s corner.
“I love my sister and I’ll always be there for her,” he said. “I even texted her the other day and I said — it was about recent events — I said, ‘I know you don’t want to talk about these things and we’re not going to.’ I just said, ‘I love you and I’m always going to be there for you.’”
He added, “I just want her to know that her relationship with my mom and our siblings is never going to determine our relationship, and I’m never going to have hard feelings for her because of that. … I’m never going to tell her how to feel — I’m always there for her despite her relationship with my mom.”
