Collin Gosselin Claims Mom Kate 'Dragged Him Around' Like a 'Servant' and Would 'Slap' Him in the Face in New Book
Collin Gosselin made harrowing claims about mom Kate in his new memoir.
Oct. 13 2026, Updated 5:32 p.m. ET
Collin Gosselin pulled no punches when speaking about how his mom, Kate Gosselin, allegedly parented him as a child, claiming she was physically abusive and treated him like a "servant," RadarOnline.com can reveal.
In his newly published memoir, In the Shadow of Eight, the 22-year-old detailed how he was allegedly severely mistreated before eventually being shipped off to a behavioral center at the age of 12.
Collin Gosselin Claimed Mom Kate Began Mistreating Him Over Reality Show Behavior
Kate Gosselin made a 'Today' appearance with twins Mady and Cara in 2019.
Collin opened up about feeling singled out and treated like the black sheep among the Gosselin kids, including his fellow sextuplets, Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah, and Joel, and his older twin sisters, Mady and Cara, now 26.
The former reality star said his mother's attitude toward him began to shift when he pushed back against having his childhood played out in front of millions of viewers on TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8. He claimed his mom was "particularly hard on me and on how I acted or how I presented myself" on camera compared to his siblings.
Collin admitted he wasn't always a perfect child during filming of the original show and the subsequent Kate Plus 8 after she and ex-husband Jon Gosselin divorced in 2009.
"People from that time would probably say I was a 'difficult kid.' I won’t argue with them. I probably was," the former TLC star admitted. "At this point, my rebellion had evolved to become more than just a quiet resistance. I didn’t always know how to express what I was feeling, so it came out sideways. I started to talk back, throw tantrums, melt down the way kids do."
Collin Gosselin Alleges Mom Kate Left His Face 'Purple' and 'Bruised'
Collin Gosselin claimed mom Kate 'yanked' his ear and 'slapped' his face.
"I became the problem," he wrote. "At first, it lived in the emotional space. The constant sense that I was one mistake away from losing whatever little ground I had."
“And then there was the physical side. I learned early that my mom’s anger didn’t stop at words," Collin wrote about his deeply estranged mom. "Sometimes, it was a sharp yank to my ear. Sometimes a slap across the face."
"She would always stretch her fingers outward and hit us with the palm of her hand," he continued. "Right across the cheekbone. Quick, decisive, meant to correct."
"It was always the same side of my face that carried the evidence. It would turn purple, bruised, tender to the touch, marks that faded just in time to be replaced by new ones," Collin described the alleged abuse.
Collin Gosselin Claimed Mom Kate Abused One of His Siblings
Collin Gosselin claimed mom Kate injured his brother's ear after yanking it so hard.
Collin went on to accuse Kate of physically abusing at least one of his fellow sextuplets.
"I learned to angle myself away from her without making it obvious, to anticipate her hand before it moved. I wasn’t the only one it happened to; there was one time she pulled my brother’s ear so hard it was actually injured," he recalled.
"But this was routine. Just another method of correction, repeated often enough that pain stopped feeling like a warning and started feeling like the cost of being noticed at all," Collin continued.
'I Was Her Servant'
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Collin Gosselin claimed mom Kate made him clean her house like a 'servant.'
Collin went on to pen in painstaking detail that Kate allegedly alienated him from his siblings by keeping him locked in the basement of the family's Pennsylvania home.
When he wasn't confined, the author claimed his mom "was giving orders, making me clean, dragging me around the house like I was her servant."
Kate eventually sent Collin away to live at the Fairmount Behavioral Health System, where he claimed to have suffered even more abuse. After spending two years at Fairmount, Collin was shipped off to another residential treatment center, George Junior Republic, where he said he finally began tapering off the medications he alleged Kate and staff at his previous facility had forced him to take.
After a lengthy and costly custody battle, Jon was awarded sole physical and legal custody of Collin in 2018, bringing his son home to live with him and sister Hannah, who had already left Kate's household earlier that year.
Kate hasn't commented on Collin's memoir, but she addressed his abuse claims at length in a 2023 Instagram post.
