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Collin Gosselin is sharing disturbing allegations about his childhood, claiming his mother, Kate Gosselin, made him sleep in a locked basement room monitored by cameras for two years.
The 22-year-old, who grew up in the spotlight on the TLC reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8, details the alleged treatment in his new memoir, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood.
Collin claims his mother treated him differently from his seven siblings, particularly after he began resisting filming the family's reality show. He alleges that she sometimes pulled his ear and slapped him across the face when he did not behave as she wanted.
"I became the problem. At first, it lived in the emotional space. The constant sense that I was one mistake away from losing whatever little ground I had," he wrote in the book.
According to Collin, the situation worsened when he was around nine years old. He claims Kate stopped allowing him to visit his father, Jon Gosselin, and moved him from the finished basement where he slept with his brothers into an unfinished storage area.
He alleges that he was made to sleep on an air mattress beside cleaning supplies and spare refrigerators. Kate allegedly installed two cameras to monitor him and locked the door from the outside, meaning he had to call through the camera system when he needed to leave the room.
"Sometimes I wonder, if the house had burned down, would anyone have remembered to come unlock the door?" Collin wrote.
He also claims he was not allowed to eat with his siblings, instead being brought upstairs after they had finished their meals. He alleges that he spent most of his time confined to the basement and was sometimes required to clean up after the family.
Collin further claims that after he attempted to run away and returned home, Kate restrained him with zip ties before he was taken for hospital treatment and later admitted to Fairmount Behavioral Health System.
During a recent appearance on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, Collin shared what he described as a report from the facility containing an alleged admission by his mother that she had a locked room for him and that a psychiatrist had approved the arrangement.
Kate has previously denied the abuse allegations. In a 2023 statement, she said Collin had received multiple psychiatric diagnoses and was placed in a treatment facility after outpatient treatment proved insufficient. She maintained that decisions made in the family home were recommended by medical specialists to protect the family.
"All measures that were taken in our home were at the explicit recommendation of his pediatric psychiatrist and/or his team of specialists and were put into place to safeguard every member of our family, our friends as well as our family pets," she said.
In 2024, Kate's attorney, Richard Puleo, said he did not believe she had intentionally harmed Collin, adding that he believed her actions were intended to protect herself and her family.
Collin said in a recent interview that he would tell his younger self "that it all worked out."
"I just want him to know that I grew up, I'm an adult now and I have this passion to protect him and all others like him," he said.
In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood is now available from Grand Central Publishing.
