Collin Gosselin spoke about having a broken family and being “forced” to handle life “alone” without his siblings.
The former reality TV star was one of the eight adorable children whose chaotic lives were documented in the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8 that aired on TLC from 2007 to 2009.
But since becoming estranged from his mother and siblings, Collin accused his mom, Kate Gosselin, of mistreating him.
He also spoke about being “locked up, isolated [and] zip tied” in his recent social media post.
Collin Gosselin shared his heartbreak over having a broken family and estranged siblings
Image credits: Amy Sussman / Getty Images
Trigger warning: contains graphic details that may be distressing to some.
Collin, 21, took to social media to share a throwback photo of him with his siblings—twin sisters Madelyn and Cara, 24, and his fellow 21-year-old sextuplets Alexis, Leah, Hannah, Aaden and Joel.
“Born to be a team, us against the world…” read the text on the photo of the eight siblings.
“Forced to do it alone, and wonder everyday what our lives could’ve looked like,” read the text on the second picture, which captured Collin alone in a car’s driver’s seat.
Image credits: imdb
The former U.S. Marine wrote in the caption about being “forced apart” and “pitted against each other.”
“All the fame and money in the world, but what about kids being kids?” he asked.
He went on to express his love for his siblings and the grief of being estranged from them.
Image credits: imdb
“I will always love them more than anything,” he added. “The tears I shed behind closed doors, thinking about the memories we could’ve shared. I love you guys…”
Collin replied to some of the comments on his post and touched upon how his mother sent him to Fairmount Behavioral Health Institute in Philadelphia at the age of 12 for what she previously claimed was “unpredictable and violent behavior.”
“The tears I shed behind closed doors, thinking about the memories we could’ve shared,” Collin wrote alongside a picture with his siblings
Image credits: thecollingosselin / TikTok
When one commenter suggested he would “understand [his] mother more” when he finally has children of his own someday, he replied: “The physical and emotional ab*** I was put through, while having to be an animal in her circus on TV.”
“Being locked up, isolated, zip tied. Being sent away because I didn’t fit into an equation,” he continued. “Having one visit from her after being completely cut off with no contact at 12 years old, in which the whole visit was her telling me how I deserved the situation I was in because I ‘destroyed our family.’”
“Yeah I’m sorry, but I will never ‘understand’ that. I will break the cycle that she couldn’t,” he said.
Image credits: thecollingosselin / TikTok
Collin told another commenter that he couldn’t wait to have kids and “teach them the importance of siblings.”
“I tell all my friends who have siblings to always value their siblings and hold each other close,” he added.
When another commenter asked if he still talks to his sister Hannah, he replied: “Yes I just saw her today! She was worried her car wouldn’t pass inspection so I was looking at it for her.”
“She’s so funny and I love her sm. It makes my day whenever I see her, but we’re both so busy with work, school etc,” he added.
The former reality TV star spoke about being “locked up, isolated [and] zip tied” when he was a child
Image credits: Kathy / Flickr
Collin, his siblings, and his parents Kate and Jon Gosselin rose to fame with their reality TV series, which showed fans the chaos and milestones of raising eight small children under one roof.
When Jon and Kate divorced in 2009, the mother obtained custody of their children. The show was rebranded and became Kate Plus 8, which ran on TV from 2015 to 2017.
The 21-year-old accused his mother of locking him up in a “containment room” and isolating him from his siblings
Image credits: kateplusmy8 / Instagram
Collin claimed that Kate used to mistreat him behind the scenes, including zip-tying his arms and locking him up in a basement for extended periods of time, sometimes even a whole day.
She “100%” treated him differently from his siblings and wouldn’t even let him eat dinner with them, he alleged during an interview with the U.S. Sun last year.
Image credits: kateplusmy8 / Instagram
“My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement,” he said. “She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside.”
He was barely allowed to go outside and spent most of the day in what he called the “containment room.”
There was a mattress on the floor, and he was kept away from his siblings. He wasn’t even going to school after a certain point.
“[She] bolt locked the door, turned the lights off and had cameras there just watching me,” the former U.S. Marine said
Image credits: jongosselin1 / Instagram
“My mother at many, many times, and most of the time became physically aggressive, verbally, very abu**** with the things she would say,” he told the outlet. “And obviously that carries over to the emotional side of things where a young child doesn’t know any better, so it was a very, very emotionally abu**** relationship.”
“And when my mother would put me in that room multiple times, she had zip-tied my hands and feet together and bolt locked the door, turned the lights off and had cameras there just watching me,” he added.
Image credits: thecollingosselin / TikTok
Collin spent a couple of years at the behavioral health institution before his father Jon got custody of both him and his sister Hannah in 2018. The sextuplets were 14 years old at the time.
Hannah and Collin remained with their father until they graduated high school, while the rest of the sextuplet siblings, Alexis, Aaden, Leah and Joel, and their twin sisters Cara and Mady, lived with their mom.
Collin launched a power-washing company after being discharged from the U.S. Marines in 2023
Image credits: jongosselin1 / Instagram
Kate claimed in 2023 that she and her children “have not been directly involved” in Collin’s life “due to his history of unpredictable behavior and violent tendencies.”
“Unfortunately, I believe collin remains a very troubled young man who continues to need a lot of help,” she wrote on Instagram.
Older sister Mady claimed their relationship reached the point of “physical violence and hate speech”
Image credits: jongosselin1 / Instagram
Sister Mady also spoke up in 2023 to “set the record straight” and claimed there wouldn’t be any further conversations “about rebuilding relationships with anyone in [her] life after reaching the point of physical violence and hate speech.”
“I do not owe my allegiance to any person(s) who has physically threatened me and every member of my immediate family (some incidents as recent as last year),” she said in a statement.
Image credits: jongosselin1 / Instagram
“Further, I will never allow someone who has exhibited hateful and even violent behavior toward others based on their racial identity, gender identity, or religious beliefs to be in my life,” she continued.
Jon shared a response to his daughter’s comment and said it took “courage” for Collin to “speak about his past.”
“The last thing I would have expected was more ab*** to come his way from a sibling that hasn’t seen or spoken to him since he was in sixth grade,” the father told People.
“They’re adults! Nothing is keeping them apart but their own choices,” one netizen commented online
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