10 Most Shocking Jon & Kate Plus 8 Scandals
Published on June 28, 2016. Updated August 27, 2019When Jon & Kate Plus 8 aired, all seemed loving and well in the Gosselin household. Over time however, the problems within the marriage surfaced and like any good reality show, the drama finally ensued. This list takes a look at the 10 most shocking scandals that rocked the stars of Jon & Kate Plus 8.
10. Jon Cheated!
When Kate was seen berating her husband of nearly 10 years in front of the world, fans couldn’t understand her motivations. The constant belittling was ghastly! With a little digging, it was eventually uncovered that Jon had been unfaithful in their marriage and had a 3-month affair with a 23-year-old elementary school teacher! Yikes! The infidelity led to the breakdown of the marriage and in December of 2009, the couple divorced.
9. Phony Balony
In spite of the drama-filled split, the show forced the couple to continue to masquerade as husband and wife to keep those cameras rolling! The truth was that Jon had been booted to a room over the garage and the couple’s relationship was in shambles. The truth was finally broke by Radar when Kate’s own brother revealed the truth! Bad TLC!
8. Grasping at Fame
While TLC pushed the series forward as Kate Plus 8 after the couple officially stated they were over, Jon had little on the horizons. But in spite of the odds, Jon showed up on Couples Therapy with his “girlfriend” Liz Janetta. Rumor has it, Jon turned in his pervious girlfriend, Hailey Glassman, after she refused to appear on the series, and then began shopping around for the right woman to pose as his girlfriend on the reality show. Classy!
7. Flinging Dung
Just before his unveiling on Couples Therapy, Jon was just sure to resurface in the tabloids to fire some serious expletives at his ex. “Everyone knows she’s an a**hole, you know what I mean?” he told Philadelphia magazine. “Kate wants to still be on television. She’s now digging into the past, because that’s what sells. Too late, honey. No one gives a f**k, really.” Esh! We’d wish you’d take your own advice here, Jon! Desperate times…
6. Rock Bottom
While Kate’s life went on in front of the cameras, Jon struggled to ends meet. By 2013, he officially hit rock bottom and entered the service industry as a waiter at the Black Dog Café in Pennsylvania. He was living in a cabin in the woods without internet or television! “Jon has really hit rock bottom,” a source told the Enquirer. “Just a few years ago, he was jetting off to France to hobnob in St. Tropez, sipping champagne on a yacht. Now he’s waiting tables at a pub! Working the weekday lunch shift, he can’t possibly be taking home more than $40 or $50.”
5. Kate’s Addiction to the Limelight
While Kate could have left the spotlight at any moment to give her children some semblance of a normal life, she has gone in the opposite extreme and has made every possible moment about raking in more fame. In 2009, she shot a talk show pilot with Paula Deen (like actually), but it never got off the ground because executives deemed Kate “too controversial.” She also appeared on the 10th season of Dancing with the Stars, with partner Tony Dovolani. She took a lot of flack for her bizarre performances, and two years after filming, Dovolani told Anderson Cooper that he needed “a lot of therapy” after working with Kate. Kate was quick to snap back on her blog, stating that Tony had misrepresented their relationship. Over the years, Kate has also worked as a guest co-host on The View and in 2013 she and her children appeared on an episode of Celebrity Wife Swap.
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4. The Impact on the Kids
It’s certainly surfaced in the media that Jon and Kate have different views when it comes to parenting and one must wonder what impact all of the fame and constant attention has on the sextuplets and twins! In an interview with Oprah on Where Are They Now? Jon expressed his concern for his children and made some pretty serious statements about their upbringing. “I saw my kids not growing up normally, like I grew up.” According to Jon, his children “have problems with their peers, and they have problems with talking to other people, and they have problems with wants and needs and manners and morals and what’s right and what’s wrong.” Kate vehemently denied this on her blog where she stated that their kids are “normal….and well adjusted.”
3. Paparazzi Blow Out
When Jon was busy living in a cabin in the woods, the paparazzi were having a field day. One not so lucky paparazzi followed Jon off the main roads to his back woods cabin and the former reality TV star let him know he meant business! He allegedly fired his gun into the air to give off a warning shot for the female photographer to get off of his property. Gosselin released a statement to Us Weekly, “At the time this photograph was taken, I was at his home on my own private property that is protected from public access and public view. The paparazzi followed me well off of the public roads and was trespassing on my private property when I confronted her. I informed the paparazzi that she was trespassing on my private property and instructed her to leave. The paparazzi refused to leave and continued harassing me and invading my privacy by trying to take pictures of me and my home. I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun, which I then withdrew and used to fire a warning shot away from the paparazzi, which is well within my rights under Pennsylvania law when someone is trespassing on private property.”
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2. Legal Battles
Kate sued Jon back in 2013 over a tell-all book, Kate Gosselin: How She Fooled The World, written by journalist Robert Hoffman. Kate alleged that Jon had helped Hoffman write the scandalous book that claimed she abuses their children. She hit her ex-husband with a multi-million-dollar hacking, wiretapping and identity theft lawsuit that was eventually dropped. Kate’s lawyers did, however, get Hoffman’s book banned from distribution, and it’s left the world wondering just what juicy tid bits he was able to dig up on the single mom!
Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com1. No Child Support
In his interview with Anderson Cooper, Jon also revealed that he does not pay anything in the way of child support for his six children! “[Kate and I] both support [the children] financially because she takes care of school and all that stuff, but I take care of the exact same things she takes care of,” he said. “I buy their own groceries. They have their own groceries at my house, their own bedrooms, their own stuff. It’s doubled.” In 2016, the custody issues seem to be continuing. In a recent interview, Jon stated that he only gets to see four of his children at a time, and that it’s been 3 years since he has seen them all together. “I can’t do anything,” he said. “It’s unfair of her [Kate] to do that, considering she claims that she does her best for all my kids.” Yikes!
Photo by Erik Pendzich/Rex