Back in 2007 “Jon & Kate Plus 8” left us open-mouthed as the Gosselings faced the many struggles which raising sextuplets and twins entailed. Their not-so common family had its problems like any other, but they always found a way to solve their issues in an amicable way, or so we thought.
However, Jon and Kate’s sudden divorce in 2009 taught us that there were many things we never got to see in the show. The following years the relationship between the former couple became strained in many ways, and the personal changes every part went through still amaze us, especially Kate’s case.
So how much did her life change after separating from Jon, and what is her relationship with her children? What happened to the show, and what is currently happening to their kids? Keep with us to discover all the lesser-known details about Kate Gosselin’s life after divorce!
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The Transition
Kate Gosselin’s life has taken unexpected and sometimes not very welcome turns since separating from Jon, with whom she used to star in the unbelievably popular “Jon & Kate Plus 8”. However, to explain the many important game-changing events of her life in the last decade, several details about her divorce must be understood first.
Want to feel old? The Gosselin sextuplets from Jon & Kate Plus 8 turned 16 on Sunday. 🤭 https://t.co/ZX1Yapqkhn pic.twitter.com/Mhb5jwKaYq
— E! News (@enews) May 11, 2020
Jon and Kate’s divorce was known by the general public for the first time through a “Jon & Kate Plus 8” episode aired in June 2009, though in real life their split was already advanced at that point. With their divorce filed on the same day the episode aired, TLC reported that the former couple was dealing with the separation fairly, both apparently moving away from their Pennsylvania family home in order to split their time with their children, making the show’s filming still viable despite the obvious change in the family’s dynamics.
By December that year their marriage was ‘absolutely’ finalized, giving custody to Kate of the couple’s eight children, and granting her the Pennsylvania’s home: ‘I am very relieved that our divorce has been finalized, and I look forward to the new year, focusing on the children’, Kate told The Star, also affirming it had been a challenging ‘transition’ for the whole family.
Cheating Scandal
Despite officially announcing their divorce in June 2009, the many cheating rumors surrounding their marriage were definitely a defining factor in their relationship’s outcome.
Those rumors spread for the first time in April that year, when Jon was caught leaving a nightclub with Deanna Hummel, a 23-year-old school teacher, before his separation from Kate was announced. Despite denying any romantic involvement with Hummel, Jon was later linked to another woman named Stephanie Santoro, the family’s former nanny – Santoro claimed that her romantic affair with Jon took place in the Gosselin’s home while she was working for them. To add fuel to the fire of these affirmations, in August that year police were called to the family’s residency on Kate’s request, following a verbal disagreement in the place, which she argued was caused by poor Jon’s babysitting choices, as he had hired Santoro as the children’s nanny.
Less than a month later, Jon finally admitted to be dating the daughter of Kate’s surgeon, a 22-year-old woman named Hailey Glassman, whom Jon affirmed to ‘love more than’ he loved his soon former wife. However, despite the many accusations of infidelity, Jon claimed that he hadn’t cheated on Kate, and on her part, she stated the reason behind their separation was his recently changed attitude towards his family.
Show’s Cancellation
If the cheating accusations thrown Jon’s way weren’t bad enough to make their divorce a constant topic on tabloids for several months, the fate of the family’s show “Jon & Kate Plus 8” only made matters worse.
Following the split announcement in mid-2009, both Jon and Kate affirmed that their show would continue, but TLC had a different opinion about it, stopping production for the time being, arguing that the family’s new dynamics made it hard to continue production. Despite the shocking news, TLC’s decision was admittedly the most logical one back then, as the network stated: ‘the family will take some time off to regroup, and then a modified schedule will be in place to support the family’s transition’.
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Though “Jon & Kate Plus 8” eventually resumed filming, its final episode was aired in November 2009, showing the family in the middle of their transition, as both parents lived away from home, and only reunited with their children for their scheduled visits. The show’s bittersweet final tone was very fitting for the Gosselins’ then-current situation, as Jon had recently accused Kate of hurting the kids in pursuit of TV fame, effectively ruining the network’s plans of continuing the show with a different name.
New Show & Legal Issues
Despite the cut-short end of her previous show, Kate Gosselin’s new show – “Kate Plus 8” – was set to premiere in June 2010. The absence of Jon was unsurprising, considering he had quit the previous show, and was even involved in a legal battle with TLC for alleged breach of contract on his part.
That wasn’t the only issue he had with the network, as he’d sent a ‘cease and desist’ letter to the network while “Jon & Kate Plus 8” was still in production, stating according to court papers: ‘no production crews are to enter Jon’s family home for any reason. In the event that anyone enters the marital property, Jon Gosselin will notify the local authorities’.
Despite Jon’s adamant position, “Kate Plus 8” successfully premiered its second season in April 2011, before being canceled later that year. However, her family-centered reality show wasn’t Kate’s only chance at having a TV career, as she briefly appeared in series such as “The View” and “Celebrity Wife Swap”, on top of participating in the 10th season of “Dancing with the Stars”, partnered by Tony Dovolani.
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In January 2015, “Kate Plus 8” was reprised with a new season, and renewed for another one, but the then ongoing custody issues between Kate and Jon led to the show’s second cancellation in 2016.
Lawsuit
In 2012 Kate faced yet another challenge in her life, following the publication of a book entitled “Kate Gosselin: How She Fooled The World” written by Robert Hoffman, a close friend of Jon.
The controversial title wasn’t the only issue with the book, as Kate claimed that it contained private information illegally obtained. Given the seriousness of the situation, she filed a lawsuit against Hoffman and Jon, accusing the latter of accessing her computer without permission, obtaining her financial information for profit: ‘Jon violated a federal anti-hacking statute in order to publish salacious, scandalous and defamatory information about Kate’,
Although Hoffman denied any responsibility over the alleged violation of privacy, including even having obtained information by digging in Kate’s trash, she accused him of bragging about having thousands of archives containing private information, above many other suspicious actions, the lawsuit reading: ‘The materials in his possession could not possibly be physically found in paper format to that extent’.
While Kate ended up leaving Jon out of the lawsuit, the accusations against Hoffman continued, but the outcome hasn’t been revealed.
Dealing With The Aftermath
Since the first moment that her divorce attracted the media’s attention, Kate Gosselin’s life definitely changed in many aspects. Back when their split was announced, she opened up about the whole situation: ‘Nobody can make you happy except yourself. And I don’t really feel he is happy’, she wrote, also affirming that she’d done everything in her power to fix ‘every complaint he’s had’.
Following the divorce’s finalization, Jon’s attempts to take his family off TV and his accusations of her being ‘abusive’ to him caused a lot of backlash directed Kate’s way, which she admitted to being affected by, despite not letting those circumstances effect her, for her family’s sake: ‘my life is my kids, and there just wouldn’t be Kate Gosselin if it wasn’t for my kids. Everything I do (is) for them’, she said in “The Dr. Oz Show” in 2016.
Despite affirming Jon ‘didn’t see the value in uplifting his children and his family’, Kate seemed determined to make the best out of their situation: ‘I can’t change those things. All I can change is me and my response, and what I teach my children about it’.
Collin’s Schooling
One of the tensest moments in the never-ending drama between Kate and Jon was definitely Collin’s special needs schooling. Kate announced her choice to have enrolled her son in such a program in August 2016, declaring it was necessary to ensure her son’s future: ‘(There’s) a fairly fluid diagnosis of what those needs are, but he needs to learn certain strategies to help him deal with things’.
Despite not revealing details about Collin’s diagnosis, she admitted to feeling alone dealing with the situation: ‘it’s not something that has only impacted me or him, our entire family has been impacted’, as reported by ET Online.
The distressing situation reached new heights when a couple of months later, Jon said that he hadn’t been informed about his son’s whereabouts, despite still having partial custody of him, and thus felt ‘segregated’ from Collin. While not giving off many other details about his son’s condition, he stated that he was different from his siblings: ‘he’s the smartest and he does this, and he does that, and he always wants it his way. He’s very particular’, he told Global News, finishing his interview by declaring he found it ‘shocking’ to be allegedly left out of making important decisions regarding his children.
Daughter Custody Battle
Sadly for Kate, Collin’s special needs program was only the start of many other problems regarding the custody of her children. Things went downhill in August 2017, following a verbal altercation between the former couple, when they argued about who would take their then-13-year-old daughter home after an orthodontist appointment.
Although the girl, who was later known to be Hannah, ended up going home with her father, the incident awakened yet another battle to decide who would be the girl’s custodian, resulting in Jon being awarded it the following year. Even if such a decision awakened rumors about Hannah having some type of animosity towards Kate, the truth is that she was merely closer to her father, and felt more comfortable living with him: ‘It’s a lot, growing up in a very busy household with lots of kids. And there’s not really a one-on-one relationship, for attention, that you have with your parent’, according to Hollywood Life. Despite her determination to live with her dad, Hannah also admitted it was hard living away from her siblings, but had to do it as she sensed ‘unfair’ treatment back in her mother’s house.
What Happened To Collin?
After obtaining Hannah’s custody, it was less complicated for Jon to gain custody of Collin as well. That’s why in 2018 he filed to gain sole custody of him, prior to the teen’s release from the special needs center he had been to for the last years. Furthermore, it was reported Collin spent his weekend breaks in his father’s house.
Although it was reported that Kate was fighting to regain custody of Hannah. and not lose Collin, she ended up not appearing in court hearings, for unknown reasons, so Collin’s custody was left in the hands of Jon, but the situation is complicated to say the least.
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Back in 2017, in a letter he sent to his father, Collin accused Kate of being abusive towards him, and in which he also asked him to take him out of the special needs center he was in. Things were apparently looking good for father and son, until in 2020, when Collin shared an Instagram post accusing Jon of beating him up, hitting him on the nose and in the ribs. The post was deleted shortly afterwards, but it showed that the Gosseling family is hiding many things.
New Show & Career
In 2019 Kate went back to TV with her show “Kate Plus Date”, which showcased her attempts at returning to dating after being single for several years. As she told GoodHousekeeping.com, she didn’t want to resign to singlehood, but to having been on only three dates at most since her divorce a decade before.
With the help of her oldest daughters Mady and Cara, Kate had big hopes of finding an ideal partner, whom her kids could also like: ‘I want to be 100% as sure as you can be that the person is going to be around for a while’.
Another one of Kate’s efforts to take her life in a new direction happened in 2021, when she sold her Pennsylvania house and moved her entire family to North Carolina. This unexpected move was motivated by her renewed nursing license, a career which she left back when “Jon & Kate Plus 8” premiered in 2007.
No matter how much negativity comes her way, it’s evident that Kate is still fighting to secure her family a good future, whether that is on TV, or living a relatively simple common life.
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