Here’s a strange story for you, courtesy of the folks at Radar. They like to get a lot of video interviews, which is nice. The thing is that, with the exception of some Z-list stars (remember their Octomom series?) they generally only get hooked up with the friends-of-friends of a celebrity. Or, best case scenario, the parents of friends of a celebrity. They’re almost always a few degrees removed. It’s still interesting to hear what they have to say, but so much is repeated “telephone-game” style that you have to wonder how accurate it is.

In this case, we’ve got Marci Santoro. What, haven’t heard of her? Strange. Well remember that babysitter Jon Gosselin hooked up with this summer, Stephanie Santoro? Marci is Stephanie’s mom. And for some reason, she’s passing on her exclusive knowledge of Jon Gosselin’s mental health – or lack thereof. Why we’re hearing about it now and why Marci is sharing at all is beyond me, aside from the two obvious answers: money and attention. She’s not going to get much of either, but here goes.

Marci claims that Jon was suicidally depressed. Not from her own first-hand knowledge but because she overheard a conversation between Stephanie and Jon in which he threatened to kill himself. Stephanie then relayed the whole thing to her mom, who was kind enough to relay it all to Radar.

Jon Gosselin may look calm and collected in photographs, but behind closed doors, the father-of-8 is a pressure cooker waiting to boil over says the mother of his babysitter and former lover, Stephanie Santoro.

In a shocking exclusive interview with RadarOnline.com, Marci Santoro confirmed her daughter’s sexual relationship with Jon and said Gosselin threatened to kill himself in a conversation with Stephanie.

“He said that everybody would be better off without him and that his children would be better off if he wasn’t around anymore,” Marci told RadarOnline.com. “He said to her, ‘I’m just going to kill myself, I’m just going to end it all.’”

Frightening words from Jon, who is weeks away from finalizing his divorce with wife Kate Gosselin. But the 32-year-old has been displaying erratic behavior at times, venting his rage at wife Kate on national TV and telling the world he “despises” her and dating a string of younger women and then denying most of the relationships.

Despite Jon’s public loyalty to current girlfriend Hailey Glassman, 22, other women (remember Kate Major?) have stepped out claiming they too dated Jon during his separation from his wife. And now Santoro confirms to RadarOnline.com that Stephanie also had a sexual relationship with Jon, which began right after he returned from France with Hailey.

“She told me that besides watching the children, they also started a relationship, and of course being a mother my first question was, ‘are you sleeping with him, did you have sex?’ and she said, ‘yeah.’” According to Santoro, Stephanie quit her jobs to babysit the Gosselin children in July.

[From Radar]

I’m not quite sure what to make of this. My initial impression from the phrasing of Jon’s statement about killing himself was that it seemed more an empty statement of self pity. There are the cries for help that should be taken very, very seriously. And there are the things that are just tossed out there. If there’s any truth to this story, that doesn’t mean that’s how Jon actually phrased it. Like I said, it’s being passed on through a long chain. And Marci is obviously putting her own inflection into it.

My gut instinct is it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have Jon’s mental health checked out. Not because of this supposed incident – it’s just too vague and the fact that anyone would pass this on if it were true makes me question the accuracy of the source more than if they made it up. But Radar actually made some really good points about Jon’s bizarre behavior. And more than anything, the dramatic change in his personality. Most people think it’s an early midlife crisis, but sometimes major mental illnesses can be shockingly overlooked. It couldn’t hurt to make sure he’s okay.

You can watch the video of the interview here. And stop dating girls with mustache moms Jon. It never leads to anything good.

Here’s Jon Gosselin shopping at Banana Republic in SoHo yesterday with a known paparazzi acting as his bodyguard. Oddly enough the burly snapper is wearing a ‘Police’ t-shirt. Images thanks to BauerGriffinOnline.