Collin Gosselin claimed that his estranged mother, Kate Gosselin, locked him in a basement with his arms and legs zip-tied when he was a child. After speaking out, Collin thanked his father, Jon Gosselin, for fighting for custody.
“It has taken a long time to find the strength needed to speak about my mother’s abuse. I have finally found my voice, and I hope to be the voice for children everywhere facing abuse. It is never OK. Your story can be told, just like mine. As well,I wish to bring attention to the system that failed me as a child, and hopefully, in turn, it will help others,” Collin, 20, shared via Instagram on Tuesday, September 10. “Seeing pictures of my younger self is still incredibly difficult, but today I feel a small sense of justice by speaking it. I’d like to thank my father for fighting so hard to obtain custody of me, and saving me from the institution where I was wrongfully committed.”
The former reality kid’s statement comes days after he discussed the alleged abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother.
“My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement,” Collin alleged to The U.S. Sun in an interview published on Monday, September 8. “She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside.”
While reflecting on the “containment room” that Kate, 49, allegedly set up, Collin claimed, “It had a mattress on the floor, and that was how I lived.”
“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,” the former TLC star continued.
Kate’s ex-husband, Jon, also spoke to the outlet, claiming that he wasn’t aware of her alleged abusive behavior until he obtained custody of their daughter Hannah Gosselin in 2018.
“The room in the basement where she kept Collin is still there,” Jon, 47, alleged to the publication. “My friends’s 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?’”
Jon – who also shares kids Madelyn and Cara, 23, and sextuplets Leah, Aaden, Joel and Alexis, 20, with Kate – added that the experience “must have been terrifying” for Collin, whom he also gained custody of in 2018.
While Kate has not publicly responded to Collin’s claims, her attorney, Richard Puleo, told The U.S. Sun that she never “intentionally” harmed Collin and that she “did what she did to protect herself and her family” from her son’s “troubled behavior.”
Kate – who divorced Jon in 2009 after ten years of marriage – previously reflected on her estranged relationship with Collin in July 2023. In a statement to People, she called Collin a “very trouble young man” with a “history of unpredictable behavior and violent tendencies.”
“[He] has received multiple psychiatric diagnoses over the years. … Collin’s distorted perception of reality is one of the many issues that he has always struggled with,” she added about her son.
Kate opened up about her dynamic with Collin after he and Jon made shocking allegations against her in Vice TV’s Dark Side of the 2000s in 2023.
“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 during his appearance on the show. “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.”
Before Jon was granted custody of Collin, Kate sent their son to an institution to deal with his behavioral issues. “I’m not going to say I was a perfect child,” Collin continued during the interview for the Vice TV show. “But I’d say my misbehaving was no different from my siblings.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
