Kate Gosselin Hopes to Reconcile With Estranged Son Collin ‘Someday’ as She Swears Off Reality TV

Kate Gosselin hopes to reconcile with her estranged son, Collin Gosselin, as she swears off reality TV, sources exclusively tell In Touch.

“Kate says she’s content. She has her kids in her life, not all of them,” says the source of the mom of eight. “She’s still estranged from Collin, but she hopes that will change someday. She says she’s done with reality TV, but you never know.”

Apart from Collin, Kate and her ex-husband, Jon Gosselin, welcomed eight children — 24-year-old twins Cara and Madelyn and 20-year-old sextuplets Alexis, Hannah, Leah, Aaden Joel — during their 10-year marriage.

The large brood rose to fame in 2007 on their TLC series Jon and Kate Plus 8, with the final episode airing after Kate filed for divorce in 2009. Their split turned messy as the once-united pair was not only divorced but also locked in a heated custody battle over their children. A judge granted them joint physical custody, but Kate was granted full legal custody of all eight children. However, Jon later claimed that he was not able to see the children due to Kate’s strict rules.

All eight of their children lived with Kate, but in 2016, she decided to send Collin to a treatment facility for behavioral issues. Jon later claimed he was unaware of this decision, as Kate had custody of the children and did not inform him of Collin’s whereabouts.

Collin would later accuse his mother of abuse during his youth, which included tying him up and locking him into a “containment room” in the family’s basement starting before he turned 10.

“I know my mother was going through a lot of things. I mean, a divorce and plenty of different things that can’t be easy to go through,” Collin, said of living with his mother as a child during a rare interview with Vice TV for their series, Dark Side of the 2000s in July 2023. “And, you know, I want to think that she needed someone to take out her anger and her frustration on. And it was just kind of me, you know, I was in the way, and I was there. So, she chose me.”

Collin acknowledged that he wasn’t “a perfect child” but felt his “misbehaving was no different from” his other siblings. Jon was eventually awarded custody of Collin in 2018, and he came home from the facility to live with his dad. That same year, Hannah decided that she wanted to live with Jon and moved out of Kate’s house.

Although Kate is rarely on social media, she broke her hiatus after the interview aired in July 2023 to respond to Collin’s claims in a lengthy post on Instagram.

“I never wanted to do this; but I feel I have been backed into a corner and left with no choice. Although it saddens me to do so, I need to speak out now,” she wrote on July 21, 2023. “My son Collin, whom I love with all my heart, has received multiple psychiatric diagnoses over the years. For the safety of myself, his brothers and sisters and for his own well-being, he was placed in a facility following the years of outpatient treatment which proved insufficient for his needs.”

After claiming she sent him away “following one of his many attacks/outbursts,” Kate continued, “Fast forward to the present day, and following Jon’s removal of Collin from treatment, my son’s unpredictable and violent behaviors have sadly continued regularly towards Jon, Hannah and others around him.”

Collin’s institutionalization would later prove to be a major roadblock in his adult life as his “number one” dream of becoming a United States Marine was derailed.

“I was discharged,” he told Entertainment Tonight about how he was let go from the Marines in August 2024. “I was towards the end of training, very close to graduating. The paperwork was looked into, and they found out that I was, in fact, in an institution at one point in my life.”

Kate has largely stayed out of the spotlight amid Collin’s abuse claims, aside from a brief return to television with her 2019 dating show Kate Plus Date and a 2023 appearance on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. Since then, she has embraced a more private, reclusive life.