Jon Gosselin has opened up about the family dynamic with his children and ex-wife Kate Gosselin, who he shares 8 kids with.
The former Jon & Kate Plus 8 star alleges that there’s a “tumultuous” relationship between the kids that live with him and the kids that live with Kate.
During an interview on First Class Fatherhood, Jon revealed that Kate has a “no-contact” order with her son, Collin.
Jon discussed his divorce from Kate and explained that Hannah and Collin, two of his 15-year-old sextuplets, came to live with him.
The remaining four sextuplets, Leah, Joel, Alexis and Aaden, live with Kate. The pair’s eldest twins, Cara and Madelyn, 19, are currently at college.
Jon said they have “parent alienation and sibling alienation” and he wants to try “to get family therapy” to fix that and find common ground.
“I’ve been going to court for 12 years, so it’s not an easy battle,” Jon said. “I had shared custody, I lost some kids, I had joint legal, I lost legal, I got legal back.”
The reality star-turned-DJ said that “when Hannah was 12 years old she wanted to live with me, so then I had to go get legal again, and then I got shared custody. And then, all of a sudden now, I got primary of her.”
He said that he went through nine lawyers and he’s “probably spent $1.3 million in court.”
Jon said he “pretty much” goes to court “every month over some custody dispute.”
Jon said that his and Kate’s lawyers have decided that custody is left up to their children.
“So, if they decide to go live with mom or they decide to live with dad, it’s up to them,” Jon explained. “We do have a guardian ad litem, so it’s like having a third parent.”
“If there is a dispute between mom and dad, they can always call the guardian ad litem — she is a representative of the court and the judge, so she can make a better decision if there’s a dispute between mom and dad,” he explained.
In November 2019, Jon opened up about Kate in a sit-down interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz on The Dr. Oz Show.
“Do you believe that Kate is an unfit mother?” Oz asked Jon.
“Well, I believe that her belief system is skewed. That’s what I believe,” Jon replied.
“I believe that her intentions, in the beginning, were good intentions bringing kids into the world,” Jon added. “And that she fought to have these kids.”
“But I think once fame and money got involved, it twisted her belief system. On my end, I’ve been fighting to get my kids off TV forever,” Jon said.
The Gosselins famously had eight children and their TLC reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8, was a ratings juggernaut … at least at first. Over time their popularity waned, and due to the stress of having eight children and the constant scrutiny of TV cameras, Jon and Kate divorced in 2009 after 10 years of marriage.
The series was later renamed Kate Plus 8 in 2010, focusing on Kate as a divorced mother raising all eight children, with Jon mostly absent from the show. Filming was later suspended after Jon’s lawyers delivered letters to TLC, demanding they halt production. The last episode aired in 2011.
When Oz asked Jon to explain his relationship with Kate, he said, “We don’t have a relationship right now so we don’t talk, nothing. It’s very nothing.”
“The only time I see my ex-wife is in court because we’ve exhausted all opportunities to co-parent. It’s never going to happen due to personality disorders and everything else,” Jon revealed at the time. “We just have different aspects on how we want to parent, and moving forward, my twins are 19 years old now and my sextuplets are almost 16.”
Kate has not commented on Jon’s claims as of this writing.
—With files from Chris Jancelewicz