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Live TV jitters? Former Jon & Kate Plus 8 reality stars Kate Gosselin and her 13-year-old twins Mady and Cara appeared on the TODAY show Thursday, Jan. 16, to share an update on their lives and how fame affected them — but the teenagers refused to speak during the interview. Gosselin tried hard to get her girls to speak up, but ultimately had to speak on their behalf to co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.
“We have not seen you or gotten to talk to you two in a long, long time and you’re out because you want to let the world know you’re doing okay. Mady, what would you want to say about how you and your sister and your family are doing?” Guthrie asked.
‘Um. . . ” Mady said, clamming up.
“Mady, your words,” Gosselin, 38, scolded and clapped her hands. “It’s your chance. Spit it out.”
“No, it’s hard. It’s a hard question,” Guthrie said. “What about you, Cara?”
After Cara only stared back blankly, Gosselin interjected: “So this is their chance to talk and this is the most wordless I’ve heard them all morning. I don’t want to speak for them, but Mady go ahead . . that years later they’re good, they’re fine . . Go for it, Mady.”
“No, you just said it,” the teenager replied curtly. Mady did, however, answer a question directed to her sister, who was asked if they think people have the wrong impression of them. “I wouldn’t say wrong, she said. “I would just say not the full story. A lot of people think that filming our show has damaged us, but it’s only really helped.”
Guthrie then directed the interview towards mama Gosselin. The journalist asked the mother of eight, who divorced Jon Gosselin in 2009, if she thought putting her children back in the spotlight two years after their reality show ended helps them or “continue the injury to them.”
“There is no injury to begin with,” Gosselin said. “Any TV things that we do, obviously, I can’t get them to do at this age, at 13, anything that they don’t want to do — as with any parent. It’s not like I forced them to do it.”
“It’s a family decision,” she explained. “It’s really frustrating when there’s so much out there that is not true. I’m getting to the point where I’m extremely frustrated. I don’t spend time worrying about it because I’m busy raising my kids. We know the truth and that’s why they’re here — even though they’re tongue tied this morning — to say, ‘Hey, we’re okay. We’re doing well.’ Would that be accurate, girls, to say?”
Gosselin’s daughters gave a slight nod, and told Guthrie that they would want to do another family reality show if they got the chance. “It was fun,” Mady added. “I really miss it.”
Watch a clip of the Gosselin trio’s super-awkward interview with her twins in the video above.
