Star Magazine is really good this week, and there’s at least one story that isn’t likely to be fabricated or heavily embellished. The low-budget gossip rag has the inside scoop on their “ex” journalist Kate Major’s relationship with father of eight Jon Gosselin. It reads like girlfriends chatting and I would bet that they got the story straight from Kate. What’s more is that Star editor Candace Trunzor has a very special message to us in this week’s editorial. She says that of course Kate resigned her position over a conflict of interest, but between the lines it’s clear that Kate still has ties to the magazine, and I predict that she’ll go back to her old job soon.

First let’s head to the article, which has some great tidbits about how easily Kate snared Jon, how he callously cheated on his People cover co-star Hailey Glassman, and how reluctant he was to pick one of the two. It sounds like he’s still stringing them both along. This account is consistent with a report in Radar Online, and with a story in In Touch this week. The subheaders below are mine, and you can tell since some are editorial:

On how easy it was to get to Jon: Bodyguard took her cell phone picture
It was love at first sight for Kate when she met Jon outside his $1.1 million home on July 17. Jon’s bodyguard asked her to move her car from the Gosselin property, Kate tells Star. “I introduced myself as a reporter and said “I’d like to meet Jon.” The bodyguard’s response? “I bet he wants to meet you.” At that, the bodyguard snapped a cell phone photo of Kate and texted it to Jon, who wrote back, “Yes! I want to talk to her.”

The attraction was instant. “I went to do a story on Jon and ended up falling for him,” Kate says. Jon also opened up about the reporter, telling Star, “She’s a nice girl. I’m just a regular guy and can hang out with whoever I want!”

It sounds like they slept together the first night by this timeline
Jon, 32, certainly wasted no time, inviting Kate out that very night. He picked her up from her hotel around 7:30 p.m., and over dinner the two made plans to travel to New York City together the next morning, where Jon had a TLC photoshoot to promote Jon & Kate Plus 8 with his estranged wife and their children.

Jon takes Kate 2.0 to his bachelor pad
While Jon’s ex was struggling with their kids… he was acting like a bachelor, showing off his new luxury two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to his latest girl. “There were still boxes that needed to be unpacked,” Kate told a friend. “He had been waiting for Hailey to decorate it.”

Listen to the way they word this, it sounds like they definitely hooked up the first night
That night, Jon and his new Kate dined at Accademia di Vino with four others, and although she stated publicly that they were “just friends,” behind the scenes she was already planning their future together. “Kate sounded like she had really fallen for him,” notes the pal. “She even told me that she wanted me to meet him.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, August 10, 2009]

I did some stupid sh*t like this when I was single too, but I like to think that I made better choices in partners than this girl. At least I never dated married guys. When women start “planning a future together” after a couple of days you can bet they’ve already slept with a guy instead of taking their time like you’re supposed to. Jon seems like a pretty lazy man who is trying to recapture the youth he “lost” having so many kids with a controlling wife. He’s not particularly attractive although he does have the dubious appeal of being a minor celebrity. Somehow he’s bagging women left and right and keeping them all hanging as he chums around with his new buddy, Michael Lohan.

Anyway, there are some more tidbits about how the guy hurt both Hailey and the new Kate. He stood Hailey up and left her waiting at a restaurant, something Kate probably relishes. He even arranged for the two women to meet without telling Hailey that he had more than a “professional” relationship with Kate.

On how he had Hailey and Kate 2.0 meet without letting on that he was with Kate
Hailey was oblivious to the budding romance and spent July 19 with her beau, strolling around Rockland Lake in Upstate New York and posing for sweet photos in a nearby park…

Earlier that day, Hailey, 22, came face-to-face with the woman who was scheming to steal her boyfriend. Hailey and Jon met the then Star reporter at a local Starbucks for an interview. As Hailey gushed about her relationship with Jon, Kate admitted to feeling pangs of guilt. “I felt conflicted about liking Jon when I realized how nice she was – I felt so bad for her,” Kate revealed to Star. “But I didn’t plan anything.”

However, Kate’s guilty conscience quickly evaporated when she and Jon reurned together to NYC – leaving Hailey behind. Hailey boasted to the friend, “I could fall in love with him.”

On standing Hailey up when he ran off to the Hamptons with Kate
The pair were already making secret plans to sneak off that night [that Kate denied a relationship] to New York’s millionaires’ playground, the Hamptons, according to Kate’s longtime friend, Lindsay Lohan’s father, Michael, Hailey was so in the dark when it came to Jon’s last-minute plans that she made reservations for them to have a date at Rocco’s on July 21. She had even ordered their food – the restaurant’s signature eggplant and mozzarells salad for two and fresh cannolis for dessert – ahead of time. But Jon never showed.

On stringing both of them along
When news of Jon and Kate’s second date came out, no one was more shocked and hurt than Hailey, who didn’t know if she should believe her boyfriend when he said he had gone to the Hamptons strictly for business. Through tears, she said “That’s news to me. I still love Jon, and he loves me.”

But Kate felt exactly the same way – and resigned from her job at Star on July 23, citing a conflict of interest since she had become involved with Jon. “I have to follow my heart,” she said. I have made this decision and I’m sticking by it.”

Kate even insisted that Jon was on his way to Massachusetts – where Hailey was hiding out – to break things off with her face-to-face. But Jon’s tune had changed by the following day, when he denied any romantic involvement with the former reporter. “Jon can’t have it both ways,” Kate told Star. “He didn’t say that, and it’ll be clear when I’m seen with him again. I think we have a future together. He definitely won’t get back with Hailey; I’m not worried about that…”

Ever since Kate resigned from her job and proclaimed her feelings for the reality dad, Jon’s been giving her mixed messages. While he’s been running between business meetings spearheaded by Michael in the Hamptons, Jon’s also been juggling Kate and Hailey. While Jon promised Kate he was going to dump Hailey, when Star talked to Kate on July 24, she didn’t know if he had actually done so. “I’ll know when I’m sitting next to him and can see his face,” she said.

[From Star Magazine, print edition, August 10, 2009]

It’s not surprising that this guy couldn’t break up with Hailey. He’s spineless and a player. A similar scenario probably played out with his wife, Kate, and I bet Kate was the one who did the dumping once she learned about his last girlfriend, teacher Deanna Hummel.

Earlier in this very long article I mentioned the editorial by Star’s editor, Candace Trunzo, at the beginning of this issue. she wrote:

I was shocked when I learned that Star’s own reporter Kate Major cross the line. She was supposed to bring in the news, not be the news! It was a routine assignment when we sent her to Pennsylvania to cover Jon Gosselin. Sure she’s pretty, blonde and engaging, but who knew that this Kate and the dad of eight would plunge in to a sensational instant romance. Clearly, it was impossible for her to stay on at Star as a reporter.

So now Star will cover Kate as we cover anyone in the celebrity world. And let me add that Star will continue to bring you the juiciest stories about your favorite celebs, thanks to the dedicated and professional members of my team.

I love how she added professional there at the end, as if to emphasize that this shocked her and is out of the ordinary for her ethically superior reporters. Although the head honchos at Star were probably upset at first that Kate was making headlines, I would guess that they’re counting their blessings now. They have access to so much insider information on sleazy Jon Gosselin.

Hearing that Jon is still hanging on to Hailey while he’s dating Kate makes me think that he’s hoping for a threesome. Please someone help me get that image out of my head. The women are cute enough, but thinking of Jon doing sexy times is making it easier for me to stick to my diet.

Jon is shown below out in Reading on 7/30/09. Credit: INFphoto.com