Collin Gosselin Claims He Has Evidence That Mom Kate Gosselin Admitted to Locking Him in the Basement as a ChildRachel McRadyMon, October 12, 2026 at 7:27 PM UTC
Colin Gosselin shares official documentation he says proves his mom Kate Gosselin admitted to locking him in a basement room.Credit: On Purpose with Jay Shetty/YouTubeCollin details the alleged abuse he suffered at his mother’s hands while promoting his upcoming memoir, ‘In the Shadow of Eight’
Collin Gosselin discussed his abuse allegations against his mother Kate Gosselin during an appearance on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast
He says records indicate that Kate admitted to locking him in a basement room
Collin’s memoir about his childhood and advocacy for abuse survivors comes out Oct. 13
Collin Gosselin is sharing his side of the story regarding his past with estranged mother, Kate Gosselin.
Ahead of the release of his bombshell memoir, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, on Oct. 13, Collin sat down with On Purpose podcast host Jay Shetty to discuss the alleged abuse he endured from Kate, being institutionalized as a pre-teen and his life after the ordeal.
“My mom would be physically and verbally abusive to me,” Collin told Shetty on the Oct. 12 episode, reiterating his past claim that Kate used to keep him locked in “a room built in the basement.”
He added, “It’s not just like a bedroom where, you know, that’s a part of the house that, you know, you just put your kid in and you flip the lock around and lock them. She had a room specifically built in the storage part of our unfinished basement, it was cinder block walls and cement floors.”
Collin, who appeared on his family’s reality shows Jon & Kate Plus 8 and later Kate Plus 8, claimed that the room “was a full effort operation of [Kate’s] to silence me, and make sure I had no way to tell anybody what was going on.”
Collin said she has publicly denied keeping him in the room. In 2024, Collin conducted an interview with The Sun, detailing the alleged abuse he received in the room in the basement. At the time, PEOPLE reached out to Kate and her attorney, Richard Puleo, for comment but did not receive a response. 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.”
Collin Gosselin reads documentation from mental institution that held him around age 12Credit: On Purpose with Jay Shetty/YouTube
During his On Purpose appearance, Collin produced a document featuring notes allegedly written by a registered nurse from Fairmount, the first mental institution he was admitted to by his mother. He told Shetty he received the notes from the institution.
Noting he entered the facility four days before his 12th birthday, Collin read the admission notes, in which his mother requested that he have no sugar or contact with his father, Jon Gosselin.
“She had just dumped me in an institution with no reason to, besides the fact that she wanted to get me out of the house so that I wouldn’t keep trying to show the world what she was doing,” Collin claimed.
Kate Gosselin, mother of eight children and reality TV star, in 2019Credit: Noel Vasquez/Getty
In the nurse’s notes, he claims there appears to be a direct quote from Kate, stating, “He always tells wild stories. I’ve been investigated before. Yes, I have a room that I lock him in, and a psychiatrist approved that.”
Collin said that this is the first time he’s had proof that his mother admitted to locking him in the basement room, adding, “no psychiatrist would ever approve that, ever.”
PEOPLE reached out to Richard Puleo for comment but have not heard back.
Kate Gosselin and her eight kids in promo shoots for their reality show ‘Kate Plus 8’Credit: Donna Svennevik/Getty
While speaking with Shetty, he shared an experience in which he says he told Child Protective Services that his mother had zip-tied his wrists and ankles.
“I told them about the whole situation with the room I was locked in a room, and I wanted to get out, which is completely justified. Any child that feels locked in a room, I don’t think they’re wrong for wanting to get out and leave the home, because they feel that sense of danger,” Collin shared. “This report details everything. ‘Child told us that he was zip tied, child had bruises on his knees,’ and I talk about why those were there, because my mom had picked me up and dropped me on the floor, and it details everything. And then you look at the determination of the report, and you know what it says? Unfounded.”
He recalled other times where he felt that if he’d spoken up when CPS visited “it would have been hell for me,” so he chose to stay quiet.
Collin Gosselin holds up his memoir ‘In the Shadow of Eight’ on Sept. 30Credit: Michael Simon/Getty
“She performed very well in front of the camera crew, and when, you know, when the cameras were on me and her, was, ‘Oh, Collin, I just, I care about you so much, I just want you to be, you know, good Collin,’ ” he claimed of his mother.
At school, Collin said one of his teachers noticed his swollen ear and asked him about it.
“I went to school one day after she had dragged me by my ear, and my ear was swollen and it was purple,” he said during the podcast episode. “I talked to a teacher about it, and the guidance counselor got involved, and I was ultimately pulled out of school because I was trying to go to other people for help.”
Collin and Hannah Gosselin with their dad Jon Gosselin at their high school graduationCredit: Collin Gosselin/Instagram
Collin claimed that Kate cut off “every route” for him to “protect” himself, including visits to his dad, Jon.
“Once she pulled me out of school, I was homeschooled,” he told Shetty. “So my siblings would go off to school, and she would, let’s just say, those days were not good for me. They were out of the house, it was just me and her, and those days were some of the hardest days of my life to recall, and I’ve done some hard things.”
During a separate interview with Good Morning America on Oct. 12, Collin explained that he was labeled as the “difficult” child “because I was the only one that pushed back against filming. And that whole facade that my mom spent years building.”
He believed he was viewed as “a danger” to Kate “because I could have so easily dismantled that facade.”
Collin no longer speaks to six of his seven siblings, who live with Kate. His sister, Hannah, moved in with him and dad Jon in 2018.
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Collin’s memoir, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, will be released on Tuesday, Oct. 13. He said that he wrote this memoir to shed more light on child abuse and child victims.
“The motivation I have, and the drive I have to speak, and to write my story and to keep advocating, and to change these systems, the motivation I feel is so strong in my heart that it radiates so strongly, it’s like a force field that you can say all you want, and I just don’t even, I don’t feel the harmful, hateful comments, I don’t,” he explained on On Purpose.
He added that he’s not afraid of legal retaliation from Kate.
“My mom has claimed that because she’s a public figure, she can’t take legal action or whatever, yes you can,” Collin said. “Anybody can go and sue for defamation, but I’ll tell you, and I’ll say this right now publicly, she won’t, because I have evidence that she has abused me, and if she does decide to take legal action, she will lose, and I can say that confidently.”
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.
Source: Crime
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