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3 weeks ago
11 [Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Collin Gosselin is blowing the lid off his allegedly abusive upbringing with mom Kate Gosselin.
It’s no secret that the 20-year-old and his estranged mother have some majorly contentious history between them. Collin has been vocal about the reality star institutionalizing him when he was just 12 years old for two years before his father Jon saved him. But before all of that, he says he lived a very, very heartbreaking life at home separated from the rest of his siblings.
During an interview with the US Sun published on Monday, the young adult reflected on living under Kate’s roof:
“It was rough. I definitely went through it a lot as a kid from my mother’s end, so it was tough. I just remember being isolated from my siblings and constantly taking the fall for her emotions or the tough things going on in her life. I just remember being a scapegoat and always taking the brute end of things. I was 100% treated differently [than my siblings]. I was isolated and I was taken away from them and I didn’t eat dinners with my family. I didn’t get to play or hang out with my siblings. I didn’t have a childhood with them and I never really had a relationship with them growing up.”
That’s so sad! Poor kid. But things really started to ramp up when he was 8 or 9 years old… because Kate allegedly locked him in their basement! He told the outlet:
“My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement. She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside. This, it was like a containment room, literally, and it had a mattress on the floor and that’s how I lived. And I was there, you know, most of the day because I didn’t go to school after a certain point. So most of the day I was in that room and I was away from my siblings and I never really went outside. I never played with them. I was kept there. It was literally containment.”
WTF!!!
He continued:
“My mother at many, many times, and most of the time became physically aggressive, verbally, very abusive with the things she would say. 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 abusive 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.”
We’re seriously at a loss for words right now! That poor child!
Jon also spoke with the outlet, revealing that he’s in contact with the people who bought their old family home and that the “containment room” is still there:
“The room in the basement where she kept Collin is still there. My friends’ in-laws bought our house and one time they asked me ‘Why is there a room in the basement with a bed and a lock on the outside?’ It must have been terrifying for him.”
That’s so disturbing.
Jon claimed that he was never a part of any of the alleged mistreatment of Collin — and that the isolation came after he and Kate divorced and he moved out:
“I never found out about her [Kate] singling out Collin, and the basement and the zip ties, until way afterwards. That kind of thing didn’t happen until after I left. I didn’t hear about that until Hannah told me about it, once I got custody of Hannah. I think once Hannah knew she was safe and not going back to mom’s she felt she could tell me. At that point, Collin was institutionalized. He also started opening up to the doctor there and then because I became the legal parent, then they started telling me what he was telling the therapist and stuff. And it all matched up with what Hannah said.”
An unidentified third sibling also corroborated Collin’s claims, according to the outlet.
Collin said he was in fourth grade when he began to expose his mother for her alleged abuse. Specifically, it all first started after he came to school one day with a visible mark:
“I went to school one day with a purple ear. My ear was swollen and purple and bruised. And my teacher had asked like, what’s going on? And that’s when I kind of spilled the tea about everything. And I told my teacher, and [Child and Youth Services] was called shortly after that. And, you know, after my mother got wind of that, I was taken out of school in fourth grade. I no longer went to school with my siblings.”
After that, Collin said his visitation with his father was restricted, and that he was removed from the camera crews. But when the Department of Human Services’ Office of Children, Youth, and Families came knocking, all of Collin’s allegations of abuse were deemed “unfounded” by those experts, according to Jon.
From that point, Collin said his mother had him diagnosed with several different mental health conditions, including autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, OCD, oppositional defiant disorder, and PTSD, according to medical records obtained by the outlet. Kate also allegedly had him put on multiple medications which made him feel “like a zombie,” according to him. And as we know, she institutionalized him — which Collin thinks his mother did to silence him from detailing her alleged abuse.
During his stay in the institution, the boy penned a letter in crayon to his father begging Jon to save him. It reads:
“Dear dad, I’m not trying to trick you, but I still love you. I told mom I want to live with you and she said no. But right, she can’t choose for me. And I’m old enough now, I’m your son, not hers. She was abusive to me after I left her house. And I’m sorry, I’m sorry, take this to court. … Dad, you’re my savior. Please help me. And let me meet Colleen. I’m counting on you to get me out of here.”
How heartbreaking.
Collin said:
“I remember saying that I’m not trying to trick you because I remember thinking that nobody believed me as a kid. My mom always told me nobody would believe me.”
After receiving the note, Jon launched a custody battle and was ultimately able to bring Collin home in late 2018.
Kate’s lawyer Richard Puleo also spoke to the outlet, denying the charges and saying:
“If Kate did the things that Collin is accusing Kate of, she would have been investigated by the authorities and prosecuted.”
He added she didn’t do anything to “intentionally harm” Collin. But amid his “troubled behavior,” she “did what she did to protect herself and her family.”
This is all some truly disheartening stuff. We’re so glad to hear Collin speaking out. Reactions?
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org
[Images via Entertainment Tonight & Good Morning America/YouTube]
