Collin Gosselin’s Memoir: What He Alleges About Kate, and What Jon Said

• Collin Gosselin, 22, one of the Jon & Kate Plus 8 sextuplets, published his memoir, In the Shadow of Eight, on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
• He alleges his mother, Kate Gosselin, hit him, locked him in the basement and had him institutionalized at 11. She has denied abusing him.
• Jon Gosselin said anyone who keeps calling his son “mentally ill” “will be held accountable.”

The sextuplets of Jon & Kate Plus 8 are 22 now, and one of them has written the story TLC never aired.

Collin Gosselin‘s memoir, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, came out on Tuesday, Oct. 13, and reopened a family fight that has played out in public since his parents’ 2009 divorce.

“It was fun in the beginning before things got out of control,” he told NPR.

What does Collin Gosselin allege about Kate?

He says the abuse started when he pushed back against filming. “I was being forced to perform,” he told NPR. “When I spoke up against that, I was punished. And my mom retaliated because I did not want to be a part of her program.”

My mom would hit me. She would pull my ear, open-hand slap me, push me, yank me around. At one point, she had zip-tied my ankles and wrists together and kept me bound and locked in my room.

Collin Gosselin, to NPR

He alleges that after his parents’ 2009 divorce, Kate, who had primary custody, isolated him from his father and made him sleep in a locked room in the basement, a pattern he says lasted two years.

Days before his 12th birthday, he says, she had him removed from the house and placed in an institution, where he was medicated and had almost no contact with his family. “I was 11 years old,” he told NPR. “They weren’t telling me anything.”

What has Kate Gosselin said?

Kate, 51, has denied the abuse allegations through her attorney, and has previously said she placed him there because of unpredictable and violent tendencies. A representative did not respond to requests for comment on the book.

On TikTok on Saturday, Oct. 10, she answered a fan who called the claims “terrible lies”: “I know rational logical ppl or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what’s going on here :).” In the same thread, she wrote that she consented to his placement “because it was medically necessary.”

Collin disputes that. He writes that an independent psychological evaluation in 2023 found no diagnosis. “It’s just that I needed it on paper,” he told ABC News.

What did Jon Gosselin say about Collin’s memoir?

Jon Gosselin, 49, got Collin out of the facility through the courts in 2018, two years after he went in. Collin and his sister Hannah have lived with Jon since. On Thursday, Oct. 15, he sent Us Weekly a statement:

If you continue to falsely label my son Collin as ‘mentally ill,’ you will be held accountable. Consider this fair warning: The days of using mental health to discredit and silence my son are over.

Jon Gosselin, in a statement

He also said he “couldn’t be more proud of my son’s heartbreaking memoir,” and that Collin “has been evaluated by multiple independent psychiatrists.” He did not name Kate.

Where is Collin Gosselin now?

In college, studying finance, and back on TV: he is competing on Fox’s Special Forces season 5. He says the last time he spoke to Kate was when she visited him at the facility, at 12, and he is estranged from six of his siblings.

“No matter what’s happened or what was said, no matter how things look from the outside, I love you, I always have and always will,” he said in a message to them on ABC News.

Here is the family timeline: Jon & Kate Plus 8 premiered on TLC in 2007. Jon and Kate divorced in 2009, and the show continued as Kate Plus 8 until 2017. Collin says he was institutionalized in 2016 and left in 2018.

More on reality TV families: Trina Braxton’s husband, Von Scales and what the Saved by the Bell kids are paid. More in Reality TV.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Collin Gosselin, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood (Oct. 13, 2026); interviews with NPR (Juana Summers; Tyler Bartlam), Oct. 13, 2026, and ABC News (Nightline and Good Morning America), Oct. 12, 2026; Kate Gosselin on TikTok, Oct. 10, 2026; Jon Gosselin, statement to Us Weekly (Johnni Macke, Amanda Williams), Oct. 15, 2026; Entertainment Weekly (Leigh Blickley); ABC News (Angeline Jane Bernabe); People. Photos and video: ABC News, TLC, The Dr. Oz Show, Good Morning America/ABC.