Collin Gosselin Blasts Mom Kate for Praying ‘to God to Stop Hitting Me’ When He Was 2 as Public Battle Intensifies

NEED TO KNOW

• Collin Gosselin made new claims amid tension with his mom, Kate Gosselin

• The 22-year-old announced earlier this month that he is releasing a memoir about his childhood on reality TV, and Kate reacted to the news on TikTok

• In a post on his Instagram Stories, Collin claimed that Kate physically abused him when he was a child

Tensions remain high between Collin Gosselin and his mom Kate Gosselin.

On Tuesday, June 30, Collin, 22, reacted to a TikTok posted by Kate, 51, on June 29, in which she responded to some fans’ comments about the bombshell memoir Collin is set to release about growing up on Jon & Kate Plus 8.

In the comments section of her post, Kate replied to someone who suggested she should take her son “to court and sue him for defamation” if she is “100% certain that the accusations against you are lies.”

Collin Gosselin and Kate Gosselin

She wrote, “I can’t bc I’m a public figure. Rules are different unfortunately. Or I def would!”

“The rules are different for ppl in the public eye,” she added in another comment. “I consulted a high power LA attorney (you’ve definitely heard of him) years ago when other ppl were putting crazy stuff out there and that’s what he said. The courts don’t honor it if you’re in the public eye :(.”

Collin later took to his Instagram Stories and reacted to his mom’s comments. “Never forget the fact that my mom would write in her diary how she ‘had to pray to God to stop hitting me’ (this was while I was 2 years old by the way),” he alleged. “And this is why using my voice to put these things in the light is so important.”

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Collin Gosselin makes new claims about mom Kate Gosselin on his Instagram Story
Credit: Collin Gosselin/Instagram

Collin announced earlier this month that he is releasing a memoir titled In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, in October.

“For a long time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever tell this story,” he wrote in an Instagram post as he announced the book. “Growing up, millions of people watched my life on television. People felt like they knew me. They knew my family. They watched me grow up. But there was so much they never saw.”

“For years, I kept those experiences to myself. Some because I was afraid. Some because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. And some because I just wasn’t ready,” he continued. “This isn’t the story people think they know. It’s the story I’ve lived.”

Collin has previously made allegations against his mom, who shares him and his seven siblings with ex-husband Jon Gosselin. In 2024, he told The Sun that he was confined and “isolated” from his siblings by Kate and that he was “a scapegoat” for his mother’s problems and often took “the brute end of things.”

“My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement,” Collin told the outlet at the time. “She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside. It was like a containment room, literally, and it had a mattress on the floor, and that’s 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,” he claimed.

Kate Gosselin with her eight kids: Joel, Collin, Aaden, Leah, Alexis, Hannah, Mady and Cara
Credit: Donna Svennevik/Getty

Collin also alleged that Kate was “physically aggressive” towards him and “verbally, very abusive.”

Kate’s attorney, Richard Puleo, told The Sun that he didn’t believe that Kate had done anything to “intentionally harm” her son and that “she did what she did to protect herself and her family” from what he called “troubled behavior.”

Medical reports obtained by the outlet at the time claimed that Collin had reported Kate’s alleged abuse to his counselor. His father, Jon, 49, told the outlet he wasn’t aware of Collin’s alleged treatment until he obtained custody of Hannah.

In a Father’s Day tribute post on Instagram June 21, Collin wrote to Jon, “Thankful for you always.” He added, “I love you and I am so grateful for the bond we share and how we have continued to grow closer and make great memories!”

Collin also praised his dad’s ex-girlfriend Colleen Conrad in a birthday post on June 17, calling her “my real mom.” (Jon married his wife Stephanie in 2025.)

Credit: Grand Central Publishing/Amazon

The publisher’s description of In the Shadow of Eight, which comes out Oct. 13, says it is the “first account of a secret childhood lived in the gaps between the frames. Collin is finally sharing the truth about being held down, the basement cell where he was hidden for years, and the cocktail of powerful antipsychotics forced on an 11-year-old boy. This is a reckoning with the dark side of fame: the systems, the entourage, and the institutions that allowed one boy to be erased. This is the never before told story of how he escaped and found his way back from the dark.”

If you 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. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

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