Collin Gosselin opened up about his time in various institutions — and claimed his mom, Kate Gosselin, sent him to the facilities to protect herself.
“I was starting to tell my teachers that my mother was — wait, real quick. Can I use the word ‘abusive’ or are they not allowed to use that on air?” Collin, 19, began in the Wednesday, July 19, episode of Vice’s Dark Side of the 2000s series.
When a producer asked whether Collin was “trying to say your mother was abusive to you,” Collin said yes. “Well, yeah. That’s kind of the reason why she sent me away,” he claimed. “I was starting to tell people what was going on at home, and she caught wind of that and had to put me somewhere where I wouldn’t be able to get the secrets out.”
Kate, 48, sent Collin to the Fairmont Behavioral Health Institute in 2016 to address his “special needs.” He was later moved to another facility in Pittsburgh, at which point he wrote a letter to his father, Jon Gosselin, asking for help.
“Being in an institution, it took a toll on me mentally,” Collin told Vice producers. “It was a really, really dark place. All I had was myself. I didn’t have anybody else. I had no support system. It was scary. I was confused, I was lost.”
Jon, meanwhile, claimed he had no idea where his son was during this period, as Kate had full legal custody of their eight children following their 2009 split. (The former couple share twins Mady and Cara, 22, and sextuplets Collin, Hannah, Alexis, Aaden, Leah and Joel.)
“I used to go to my kids’ school and have lunch with all of them, and that’s when I would see them — I could see them all collectively,” Jon, 46, recalled on Dark Side of the 2000s. “One day, I look around and say, ‘Where’s Collin?’ And [the other kids] don’t say anything, which really scared me. I’m like, ‘Where’s your brother?'”
At that point, Jon went to the school guidance counselor, who allegedly told him Collin was no longer enrolled as a student. “‘He’s not here anymore,'” Jon recalled the counselor saying. “‘But I can’t talk more about that.'”
After Collin got in touch with Jon, Jon removed him from the facility. Since 2018, Collin and his sister Hannah have been living with their dad. According to Hannah, none of the other Gosselin kids speak to their brother.
“They don’t talk to Collin,” Hannah claimed. “Everyone eventually found out what happened to him, but now they decided to just not have a relationship with him.”
Collin, for his part, holds his mother responsible for driving “a social barrier between” him and his siblings. “She told them the story one way, and obviously, I see the story a different way,” he explained. “I didn’t know who my mom was before TV, but I think she was a different person. I think she has a good heart and she had good intentions, but TV and fame and money changes people.”
Kate, who has denied Collin’s abuse allegations, did not participate in the Vice series.
