Collin Gosselin claims estranged mom Kate Gosselin told him, “You broke our family,” when he was in a mental institution at age 12.
In his new book, “In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood,” Collin, 22, remembers the tense interaction he had with his mother during the only time she came to see him at the facility.
Collin says Kate, 51, appeared “disappointed” when they were face-to-face, surmising that she was “horrified” by the weight he had gained.
“She warned us about eating healthy and what would happen if we didn’t,” says Collin, one of Kate’s eight children she shares with ex Jon Gosselin. “But I didn’t really have a choice here. I ate what they gave me. And now, well, I was fat.”
Collin recalls that the mother-son duo shared a “stiff” hug and he told her he “missed her,” but Kate ignored him.
The doctor, who was in the room with them, mentioned Collin had “lashed out a couple times” recently, but Collin writes that his “crying fits” were over wanting to go home so badly.
After the doctor claimed the then-teenager was “responding well to the program,” Kate thanked the doctor by his first name, Jack, which shocked Collin.
“I shifted uncomfortably in my seat,” Collin writes. “When did my mom and the doctor get on a first-name basis? How often were they in touch?”
Collin says when the doctor left, he showed his mom origami gifts for his seven siblings, but Kate refused them.
In that moment, Collin felt his stomach “drop,” he writes, adding, “These gifts were my chance to remind them I existed. If she wouldn’t take those, she wasn’t going to take me.”
Collin says in a “desperate” plea, he asked Kate if he could come home, but she allegedly insisted that “wouldn’t be appropriate,” and claimed his siblings were “doing so much better” with Collin away.
Kate, after allegedly bragging about the cakes she ordered for the rest of her sextuplets on their birthday and sharing details about the family’s upcoming summer break plans, then allegedly told Collin, “You are here because of you. You broke our family.”
The “Special Forces” star, who claims that he’d heard the scathing comment before, says he “started to sob” and covered his face with his hands, as the doctor reentered the room and Kate declared she was leaving.
“I don’t remember saying goodbye,” he writes. “A nurse escorted me back to the pod. That was the first and last time my mom ever visited me in the institution.”
In his bombshell memoir, Collin exposes his mom’s alleged wrongdoings during his childhood, including her decision to ship him off to a facility back in 2016.
Kate claimed in 2023 that she placed Collin in the institution “following years of outpatient treatment which proved insufficient for his needs,” and did so “for the safety of myself, his brothers and sisters, and for his own well-being.”
The “Celebrity Apprentice” alum also claimed Collin “remains a very troubled young man who continues to need a lot of help.”
Collin, however, alleged in a 2025 interview with The Sun that Kate sent him away because he didn’t want to be on camera with her for TLC’s “Kate Plus 8” following his parents’ 2009 divorce.
Collin eventually got out of the facility thanks to his dad, Jon, who was then granted legal and physical custody of his son.
Page Six exclusively reported last month that Kate, who is still estranged from Collin, is “nervous” about his memoir.
“Kate doesn’t want anyone in the family to talk about their past,” a source told us. “She considers any of the children who talk in the family as traitors.”
