Key Points
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Amid renewed interest in the family, Netflix is moving ahead with a documentary about the Gosselins.
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The estranged family of 10 appeared on TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus 8, retitled Kate Plus 8, in the 2000s and 2010s.
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The documentary will feature interviews with Jon Gosselin and two of his eight children, Collin and Hannah, whom he shares with ex-wife Kate Gosselin.
Jon Gosselin will appear in a new Netflix documentary about his famous reality TV family.
Jon — who appeared alongside his ex-wife, Kate Gosselin, in the long-running TLC reality series Jon & Kate Plus 8, later renamed Kate Plus 8 in the 2000s and 2010s— is set to participate in the doc alongside two of the couple’s eight children: Collin and Hannah. Netflix announced the news in a Wednesday, Oct. 21, press release.
Jon and Kate share twins Mady and Cara, now 26, and sextuplets Aaden, Alexis, Collin, Hannah, Joel, and Leah, 22. The children were just babies and toddlers when their family first appeared on screen in 2007.
Over the years, reports of divorce and custody battles, physical and emotional abuse, and exploitation have run rampant — and the estranged family has been embroiled in controversy.
“For nearly a decade, a family’s chaos and love played out on TV as comfort viewing,” the logline for the Netflix documentary reads. “Years later, conflicting accounts have emerged from within the family itself — competing memories of the same childhood, the same home, the same spotlight. The new documentary takes a closer look, piecing together the story from every angle: the children who grew up on camera, the adults who built a brand around them, and the audience that couldn’t look away. It’s an intimate look at how real life became a phenomenon the world thought it knew.”
Entertainment Weeklyhas reached out to Jon and Kate Gosselin’s respective teams for comment.
Recently, Collin has appeared on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Testand released a tell-all memoir,In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, this month, which alleges severe childhood trauma and maltreatment by his now distant mother, Kate.
She has continually denied all claims and insisted over the years that Collin suffers from “multiple psychiatric diagnoses.” Jon, however, has stood by his son, with both stating that Collin has no known mental health issues, despite being evaluated.
“My mom has said these things time and time again,” Collin told TMZ in a video posted earlier this month. “And the nice thing is, I’ve gotten multiple psychiatric … evaluations done. So many, many times — three times, I actually have three independent psychiatric evaluations that have been completed — I passed all of them, obviously. And all I have to say is, maybe it’s time for someone else to get one.”
Amid the release of Collin’s book, Kate’s fans wrote messages of support under one of her recent TikTok posts, and she responded with a remark on her son’s alleged mental health.
“I know rational logical ppl or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what’s going on here,” she said in response to a fan.
Following their bitter split in 2009, Kate raised her children before Collin and Hannah moved in with Jon as teenagers in 2018. Years later, Jon shared with The Sun that he hadn’t spoken with his other kids in quite some time. Hannah, however, has said she maintains a “stable” relationship with her mom.
“It was a difficult decision leaving my siblings,” she shared with Entertainment Tonight in 2022. “I did not want to be separated from them or even live in a different household than them. … I chose to live with my dad. I feel like I just made the choice for myself. I have always been closer with my dad.”
Collin echoed those sentiments while promoting his book, explaining that Jon has “always had my back” and has “been there for me.”
“It’s unfortunate, but we want parents that support us and that do the best for children,” Collin told TMZ. “But [Kate] has unfortunately done the opposite.”
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The Netflix documentary will <a href="https://comicvibe.com/jennifer-lopez-reportedly-dating-co/” title=”Jennifer Lopez Reportedly Dating Co”>reportedly “untangle the story” of what came after the reality series. It is produced by Mike Gasparro and Julia Willoughby Nason (American Murder: Gabby Petito, Death of the Pastor’s Wife) for The Cinemart.
No release date has been announced.
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