Jon Gosselin is, once again, defending his son, Collin Gosselin, against allegations of abuse, violence, and poor behavior through the years. The allegations were made by his sister, Mady Gosselin, and mother, Kate Gosselin – who haven’t spoken to Jon or Collin in years – as the family drama continues.
In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Tonight, Jon Gosselin questioned his ex-wife and daughter’s allegations and argued that they’ve had no contact with them for more than a decade. In fact, he admits that his relationship with six of his children – not including Collin and Hannah Gosselin – is non-existent.
“I haven’t talked to Mady and Cara for, oh I don’t even know, over a decade. And then I haven’t talked to Joel, Aaden, Leah and Alexis for five years,” he said in the interview – accompanied by his current girlfriend Stephanie Lebo. He shares all eight children with Kate, but the couple divorced back in 2009.
Collin and Hannah have been living with Jon for several years now and have grown extremely close, but he has been estranged from the rest of his family for a while. Considering they’ve had no contact with the others, Jon was ‘heartbroken’ over the allegations made by Mady and Kate – so he’s defending his son.
“Well, I was heartbroken when Mady came out with what she said about Collin only because she hasn’t seen him either. So how can you say these things about your brother? And where did that come from?” he said of the allegations. “We all know where it came from, it came from Kate. Exactly Kate’s words.”
While he admitted his son, Collin, behaved poorly as a child, that was years ago and he has since fixed that behavior. He also questioned why his daughter, Mady, took down her Instagram post that included the allegations and urged his estranged children to listen to both sides of the story – not just Kate’s.
“My message for Mady is: I still love my daughter. I mean, she’s my daughter. But please don’t talk anything negative about a sibling you haven’t seen in over seven, eight years and he hasn’t done anything to you, and you should treat people the way you want to be treated,” he said of his daughter.
Further in the interview, Jon Gosselin provided an update on his son, who recently enlisted in the Marine Corps and is currently going through bootcamp at Parris Island. He has been in contact with Collin through letters and said he’s doing ‘super well,’ but doesn’t have much time for anything but training.
“Collin’s super independent, so he lived on his own a little bit during high school like he just wanted to experience that. [Then] he enlisted at 18 and he left when he was 19, [and] I think it taught him to grow up a lot faster,” he said of Collin – showing pride over just how far his son has come in such a short time.
He went on to explain how structured bootcamp is, but his son is making his way through it like a champ. They get up at 4 a.m., do private training, eat a meal, study in the classroom, eat another meal, then more private training – every single day. Collin isn’t even allowed to go shopping or anything until the 9th week.
“[But] he just writes like, ‘Hey, I miss you guys, I can’t wait to eat a real meal,’” Jon Gosselin added. “I think we built a good solid foundation for Collin to go into the Marines and now he knows he has a strong support system at home” – a sentiment that Stephanie Lebo completely agrees with. They’re all happy.