Last year, we got a sad update on the messy Gosselin family drama. Collin Gosselin and his sister, Hannah, who are two of the 20-year-old sextuplets, went public both on Entertainment Tonight and in the FX documentary The Dark Side of Abuse with details about their mom, Kate Gosselin’s, abuse. According to Collin and Hannah, Collin was often “separated” from the rest of his seven siblings during playtime and meals. At age 12, he was sent to an institution. Allegedly, no effort was made at home to help Collin with his supposedly disruptive behavior. Things got ugly when Kate, who is the Patron Saint of Karens, and big sister Mady (one of the 23-year-old twins), went on the offense. Mady accused Collin of racism and causing her “trauma,” while Kate went with classic DARVO behavior, accusing him of having “violent behavior” and “mental illness.”
For what it’s worth, after his dad Jon got him out of the institution, Kate did not show up at the court hearing that ended with Jon getting full custody of Collin. She, and the rest of his siblings minus Hannah, reportedly have not seen him since he was 12. Jon has gone on record saying that after all of that drama, Collin was only diagnosed with ADHD. Meanwhile, Collin has been working on fulfilling his dream of becoming a Marine. Unfortunately, for Collin, he’s hit a bit of a stumbling block in that regard. Although he still wants to join the US Marines, he was discharged due to his time spent at the institution.
“I was discharged,” he explained. “I was towards the end of training, very close to graduating. The paperwork was looked into, and they found out that I was, in fact, in an institution at one point in my life.”
“And see, they don’t need any deeper reason. Being in an institution, that’s good enough for [them] to discharge [you],” he added.
Despite this, Collin said he was working to appeal the decision as he has “very few other wishes in life that would top being a United States Marine.” For now, the television personality said he has plans to major in finance at Penn State.
Collin’s parents, Jon and Kate Gosselin, share 22-year-old twins Cara and Madelyn as well as sextuplets Collin, Alexis, Aaden, Leah, Joel and Hannah. Jon, 47, and Kate, 49, finalized their divorce in 2009. Kate eventually was awarded custody of their children and sent Collin to an institution for what she claimed to be “unpredictable and violent behavior” when he was 12 years old.
“I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know where I was going… That was the most scared I’ve probably ever been in my life,” he told ET. “I didn’t even say goodbye [to my siblings].”
While he was there, Collin claimed that Kate only “came to visit me once” for 30 minutes. “The entire time all she did was lecture me and tell me that I destroyed our family,” he alleged. “Our family was under a spotlight 24/7 … I know strongly that the reason I was sent away was for my mother to protect her reputation.”
PEOPLE has reached out to reps for Kate and an U.S. Marine Corp spokesperson for comment.
Oh, my heart breaks for Collin. He’s been through so much at the hands of his mother. I can’t even imagine how scared he felt and how painful it must have been to hear your own mother tell you that you’ve “destroyed” your family while gaslighting you and turning your siblings against you. She’s a horrible person and a terrible mother. Now, it appears that her decision to abdicate responsibility and send him to an institution at age 12 has likely cost him a chance to get his dream job. I’m crushed for him. I don’t know much about military protocol but maybe one of you knows – does he even have a chance at having the decision overturned with appeal? Or is it just that strict? Collin now plans to attend Penn State and major in finance. I really hope Collin finds his place and thrives. That’s the ultimate revenge against his mother.
Photos via YouTube/ET Online
It’s not like his being institutionalized was a big secret, but the military just found out after he had been in training? Makes it seem more likely that he either lied about it on paperwork or there were other factors involved with his discharge.
I agree this sounds a bit sus.
My grandson was in the Navy, he got a general discharge and one of the reasons was because he had weed in his system when he joined -still illegal at the time (there were other reasons he was discharged). So if that was part of the reason he was discharged he should have never been allowed to sign up. While, there was probably other reasons he was discharged, I can believe the Marines knew and ignored it until other things happened.
One of my cousins had joined the army (I have a huge military family she’s one of the that got a discharge) and was discharged right before she was due to graduate boost camp. She was discharged due to scoliosis. She had her physical done after she signed up and they had her wait about a month after her physical to send her to boot camp. No disciplinary issues, it was scoliosis. Her heart was broken because she never knew she even had scoliosis (hers is very mild) and she never understood why they even let her go to boot camp in the first place. So from knowing what happened with my cousin, unfortunately, yes sometimes they do, or did (this was 20 years ago), discharge you right at the end for something overlooked. If they don’t and let you graduate then you are, or were, still entitled to military benefits.
They may have been trying to work with him while he was in service. Sometimes the desire to stay is still there but there is just isn’t a position that is a good fit.
It is easier to say his history than to disclose any medical treatments or interventions.
I had a friend who joined the Navy and was then diagnosed with depression.
They did work with him, he was getting treatment and he was put on several other assignments before he was honorably discharged.
He did want to stay- all his friends and structure were there, but it wasn’t working out. He did end up finding stability later and realized that the structure he thought was helping was instead wearing him down.
Hopefully Collin finds the place in his life where he feels comfortable and happy
It’s interesting you say that about the structure. I was thinking that maybe the Marines were appealing to him BECAUSE of the time he spent in an institution. I wonder if this will be a blessing in disguise for Collin.
I didnt know that he had been institutionalized, but I never watched Jon & Kate or any of their shows. Maybe the person who did his paperwork didn’t, either.
I can see wanting to have a life out of the spotlight and find freedom in the Anonymity of a uniform.. sad that he has suffered so much because his parents decided to make their children lives the family income.
Jon did also work outside the home. At least in the beginning.
All of those reality shows featuring children are horrific. They are just garbage and no one intervenes until it’s too late for the kids. Too often they are a much needed financial windfall and parents will justify abuse for the money. And it is super common for a famiy to have a family scapegoat and for the parent(s) to encourage the other kids to pile on.
Youtube and SM are the new iteration of this problem. Mommy influencers, etc.
Yeah how many have involved trauma, violence, sexual abuse, and other tragedies?
Eight Passengers, 19 Kids and Counting, Toddlers & Tiaras etc.
Just toxic abusive shit, all of them.
I don’t know how much they can appeal. The military is funny about mental health stuff, which is also why they’re having trouble recruiting. A nephew who was on anti depressants and anxiety meds in high school was interested in joining a year or two ago. You have to have been off those meds for three years before they’ll consider you.
This is why the mental health stuff Harry does is so important. It’s extremely entrenched in the military that mental health is a weakness, needing medication is a weakness. Too many vets ending their lives because there’s not enough VA money for the systems and support they need, and the stigma that surrounds using it.
When it comes to medications, it’s not just mental health. The way it was explained to me is that if you are deployed, they cannot guarantee you access to medications you may need, so they will medically discharge (or not allow enlistment by) someone who requires regular treatments or medications, even if whatever they’re taking medication for doesn’t affect their ability to perform their job.
That’s good to know, A Girl and Her Dogs. That makes sense as a reason. It also might explain a friend who joined right before he aged out of being able to join, and then after like six months got discharged. The only explanation I heard was something medical (he appears healthy, although probably bigger than the military wanted). If he’d gotten diagnosed with high cholesterol/blood pressure stuff that needed medication that could’ve ended it, I suppose.
Besides the valid point of having soldiers in the field needing medications, people with known mental health challenges prior to service are monumentally more likely to develop bigger problems because of the stressors of military service, particularly if they are deployed. It’s well-documented that an abusive upbringing ‘predisposes’ people to PTSD. The military does not like to pay life-long disability payments if they don’t have to, so they do try to avoid accepting people who statistically may be more likely to face mental health problems in the future.
I say this as a person who is a legal guardian for an adult with severe PTSD due to military service. It’s not just about the culture of toxic masculinity (though I won’t deny that has a role). It’s also basic CYA.
I don’t know the answer to that but the services can be really strict even about things that happened when a person was a juvenile. Someone i know got into an argument with her teen son at one point and ended up calling 911 because she couldn’t handle his anger, and he was arrested. Even though the charges were ultimately dropped, it stopped him from getting into the military when he finished high school because they can look into your records even for things that happen when you are a minor.
Horrendous. The military may have been really incredible for him. That woman is truly vile.
I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and I have seen instances where people had previous instances of psychiatric treatment, including for suicide attempts. I have never seen anyone that had been “institutionalized,” but in this case it seems like something his mom did and that it wasn’t court-ordered. Usually, the record shows that the service department performs their own psychiatric evaluation. Obviously, I don’t work for the DOD so I don’t really know how they would handle it, but that’s my two cents
I believe it’s that strict. my son joined the army and he wasn’t even allowed to be on his ADHD medication.
I read this yesterday and just felt genuinely sad for all of these children…well, they’re all now adults. They didn’t ask to be televised as little kids. They weren’t given a chance at a normal childhood. And being televised made Kate, who I believe was already a narcissistic perfectionist, into even more of one. I just want all the kids to be okay and happy.
I give him a lot of credit for going after his dream. I admire his resilience that he also has a great Plan B. Wishing him all the best in his life ahead.
I felt so sad for him reading this. He wasn’t trying to be some nepo baby influencer. He just wanted to serve his country. I do believe there is some weight to the story. That she had him institutionalized to shut him up about what was really going on in her home.
Women like Kate make my blood boil. They love nothing more than hobbling their children. To either keep them tied to them. Or just to be malicious.
I hope he finds a path that works for him in life. If not the military. And Kate and Brad Pitt can go have drinks. To cry about why they don’t understand why their kids don’t speak to them.
This policy is written thinking of the most stressful, dangerous situations military people get thrown into. And it’s to protect the entire unit, not the individual.
My father was in the Navy on submarines and a sailor had panic attacks so bad they had to sedate him until they could get to port and lift him out by helicopter. People lost jobs because he wasn’t properly screened. Submarines are stealth ships, so it’s 3 month mission was exposed and they couldn’t use that route for any sub again.
In a dangerous job, a mental health crisis is unfortunately a safety issue for everyone.
While I believe all the stuff about his Mom putting him in there unnecessarily is correct and she never should have done that, I’m not so sure I believe this story as to why he was discharged. It’s in his medical records and he and his father have been very public about it, there’s no way they didn’t know when he went in. He was involved with ROTC stuff before this too.
He’s had a few behavioral outbursts since he lived with Jon that make me a little suspicious of this as the real reason for his discharge.
ITA, there was one point where he put something on social media I think accusing Jon of beating him up. Then something else came out saying that Colin called police after Colin had gone into a violent rage during an anrgument with Jon and Jon had put him in a headlock to stop him throwing things. Jon was not charged and Colin continued living with him. There were also some lawsuits from when Colin caused two different car crashes. The discharge from marines just says to me that Colin may still have problems processing anger and expressing it in a non-aggressive manner, there may have been some concerning incident while in boot camp, and that the military is conveniently able to use his prior institutionalization as an excuse to discharge him. I hope he gets the mental health treatment he needs to succeed in life.
I’m 100% team kids on ANYTHING involving Kate Gosselin, but this is misleading at best and a straight up lie at worst. That uniform he’s wearing is NOT Marine issue – it looks ROTC-ish. My husband and oldest son served in the USMC for the standard four years each and the Corps has one of the most rigorous screening processes of the entire military. They would’ve known BEFORE he stepped his feet on the yellow footprints and wouldn’t have let him in. Don’t get me started on the military’s stance on mental illness, but I think poor Collin saw his chance to get back at his mom. She IS the reason he can’t get in to the USMC – but there’s no way he was ever in to begin with.
yeah that’s my take. Any real issue would’ve come out during recruitment and if he actually shipped off and got kicked out of boot camp, some prior juvenile record of institutionalization isn’t what did it.
Both Kate and Jon seem to be appalling parents from what I’ve read, but sometimes kids are violent, and sometimes kids have mental illnesses that are serious enough to endanger others. Lots of parents with violent kids really struggle with juggling doing right by their mentally ill child while also protecting their other children, and LOTS of siblings of mentally ill youth grow up with extreme trauma due to their needs going ignored (because the problem sibling was the focus) or not being protected from abuse.
Mady is on record as saying that Collin abused her, and it’s not okay to accuse an abuse survivor of lying, or to marginalise an abuse survivor’s trauma, just because the narrative is Kate=EVIL ergo anyone on the opposite side to Kate=GOOD, ergo anyone critical or negative towards that person=BAD. Mady is a person separate from Kate and she was an innocent child who was being abused.
If Mady’s experience of Collin is that he was violent or abusive to her, than she is the victim just as much as him, if not more so. However poorly Kate handled parenting them, Mady is the victim too. Don’t demonise abuse survivors just to fulfil some BS media narrative.
I have to admit I’ve never heard of the Gosselins until fairly recently because their TV show never aired in my country (afaik), but as someone who didn’t grow up consuming the American tabloid narrative about these people, it’s astonishing that a man with a long history of violence and abuse is being woobified, and girls making abuse allegations are being cast as Karens.
Believe. Women.
This is the kid whose mother, when he was sick with a cold as a little boy, threw a blanket on the floor for him to sleep on in the laundry room. That’s what he was up against.
@ SamuelWhiskers
Mady was also abusing and bullying her younger siblings Collin and the other 7 kids. She had anger issues and was jealous of her younger siblings and took that anger out on them. There are tons of clips from the show of her punching them, hitting them, pushing them, and screaming at them. That’s what they shown on Tv who knows what went on behind the scenes.
I mean 5 kids not 7 kids
Thank you for saying this. I had a close friend who grew up with a very troubled brother, and he threatened, intimidated, verbally and emotionally abused everyone in the family. Like Collin, there was never a clear cut diagnosis on him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. She wishes her parents would have sent him away, it would have spared her and her siblings so much trauma. She went no contact with him years ago and never looked back. So when Mady says he abused her, I believe her.
Samuel Whiskers, while it is likely that Colin abused her, I can’t help but also blame the parent, whrn children are allowed to abuse each other. Children dont understand that they are commiting abuse. And the same goes for Maddy, i believe that she abused Colin, too. And i believe that Kate cared more about images than her children’s mental health, and i believe she probably brainwashed her children into believing that Colin was the problem. Family therapy should have been the first option for this child and his family, not institutionalization, and the fact that Kate only visited him once, definitely seems to imply that she wanted to discard him, NOT get him help.
I don’t care what my son did. I would never bad mouth him and talk about his past on a public platform. She is disgusting.
I am waiting for some of these TV kids to write books. The older Duggar girls have done so, and Patty Duke wrote one a long time ago.
Hope Colin’s mother lives long enough to read his book and the books some of his siblings will eventually write. Ditto for some of the Disney kids.
This is not quite how it works. Many young people are ordered by a judge to choose between joining the military or going to jail…they have juvenile records. A record of institutionalization, especially as a juvenile, isn’t enough to disqualify you from joining the military. It could potentially be a matter of why you were institutionalized if the military doesn’t want to deal with your particular set of issues.
Didn’t he ship off for boot camp? I suspect something came up during training: maybe he washed out in boot camp. There are plenty of people who only make it so far before they break, mentally.