Collin Gosselin says he was 'stubborn enough to question' his mom, Kate, and she didn't like it. And when he said he no longer wanted to be on camera, it was allegedly the last straw.
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Add BollywoodShaadis on GoogleCollin Gosselin is back in the spotlight after making a series of bombshell claims about his family, particularly his long-standing estrangement from his mother, Kate Gosselin. The former Jon & Kate Plus 8 star, now 22, is finally sharing his side of the story through interviews and his upcoming memoir, promising to reveal what he says really happened behind the scenes of the family's reality TV fame.
In a newly published full-length version of Collin's September 2025 interview with The U.S. Sun, the former child reality star reflected on the events leading up to his placement in a behavioral facility at age 12. According to him, tensions with his mother grew after he began questioning why the family continued filming Kate Plus 8 following his parents' 2009 divorce. He told the publication:
"I was stubborn enough to question my mom. I questioned her about everything, and that came before the rebellion of me not wanting to be on camera and be a part of her circus.… That questioning led to me later not wanting to be on camera, and that really killed her."
Since then, Collin has said he often wonders whether his refusal to continue filming or his willingness to question his mother influenced her decision to send him away. While he admits he cannot say for certain why Kate made that choice, he believes his rebellious nature and resistance to being on camera may have made her worry that his siblings would eventually follow his lead.
He also questioned whether having one child unwilling to appear on television complicated production for the reality series, though he offered no evidence for that belief.
Kate Gosselin decided to send Collin to a behavioral facility in 2016 for his alleged "unpredictable and violent behavior." For the next two years, he was kept at the Fairmount Behavioral Health System, a psychiatric and behavioral treatment facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, based on Kate's claims that he was a 'special needs' child. He finally got out in 2018 after his father, Jon Gosselin, applied for full custody and eventually brought him home.
Collin has alleged that during his time at the institution, Kate visited him only once for about 20 minutes and spent much of that visit blaming him for the family's problems. He also claimed he was heavily medicated and told by his mother that he had "broken" the family. However, those allegations have not been independently verified.
During his 2019 appearance on the Dr. Oz Show, Collin's dad, Jon, had scathingly criticized his ex-wife for sending Collin away for a behavioral rehabilitation program. He alleged at the time:
"Kate institutionalized him without a diagnosis and then created a diagnosis. He did not need to be in an institution. Just because he was a difficult child did not mean he needed to be sent away against my will, against my rights. I did not know where he went. It took me two and a half years to find him. It took me another year to get him out."
Regardless, Kate and her lawyer have consistently maintained that Collin's version of events is not true. In previous public statements, she said her son received multiple psychiatric diagnoses and was placed in a residential treatment program only after years of outpatient care proved insufficient.
More recently, Kate responded to comments on social media by saying that "only parents who have a mentally ill child understand," reiterating her longstanding position on the matter. Collin's forthcoming memoir, In the Shadow of Eight, is expected to revisit his childhood, his years in treatment, and his experiences growing up on reality television.
With both mother and son continuing to stand by sharply different accounts of the past, what is your take on Collin's claims?
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