Collin Gosselin, who became famous as a young child on Jon & Kate Plus 8, has spoken about growing up on camera and why he believes children need greater privacy.
Gosselin said on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast that filming became such a routine part of childhood that he initially did not realize there was anything unusual about it.
Newsweek reached out to Gosselin's representative via email for comment on Wednesday.
His story follows other former child reality stars, including Jill Duggar Dillard, Jacob Roloff and Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson, who have publicly revisited aspects of their childhoods as adults.
Family reality television introduced audiences to children before many were old enough to understand what being famous meant. Now, some members of that generation are adults and are publicly reassessing what happened when cameras were invited into their childhoods.
Gosselin Says Cameras Became His Normal
Gosselin grew up on Jon & Kate Plus 8, the reality series following Jon Gosselin and Kate Gosselin as they raised their eight children, a set of twins and sextuplets. The show documented the family's everyday life and the challenges of raising eight children, initially airing on Discovery Health before moving to TLC.
After Jon Gosselin and Kate Gosselin divorced, the original series ended in 2009 and later returned as Kate Plus 8, focusing on Kate Gosselin raising the children.
For Collin Gosselin, there is barely a memory of childhood before television.
Speaking to Shetty on On Purpose, Gosselin said his earliest memories already included camera crews, cables and lights inside the family home.
“From the age of 3, that was part of my life,” Gosselin said. “It was as normal as waking up in the morning and eating breakfast.”
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He described filming as near-constant, encompassing birthdays, emotional outbursts and even potty training. As the program grew, he alleged, producers sometimes asked the children to repeat lines, reactions or facial expressions.
Gosselin said that became increasingly difficult to square with the idea of “reality” television.
Later, he began resisting filming himself. Gosselin recalled tentatively telling his mother at around 8 years old that he did not want to participate.
“I realized it was like this big circus I was a part of,” he told Shetty.
Gosselin said he also tried to communicate his unhappiness nonverbally during filming by looking away or refusing to appear cheerful.
“I rebelled by not performing,” he said.
Gosselin Makes Children's Privacy His Focus
Gosselin's concerns extend beyond his own experience. During the interview, he argued that children need space to experience difficult emotions and make mistakes without those moments being recorded for an audience.
“There needs to be privacy,” Gosselin said. “There needs to be an ability to have that vulnerability that's not broadcasted.”
For him, that concern has become more urgent as social media has made it possible for parents to broadcast family life without a television network.
“The biggest thing is that the child doesn't have a say in it,” he said. “The child can't, you know, raise their hand and say, ‘I don't want to do this,’ if they don't understand it.”
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Gosselin also used the interview to discuss allegations of physical and verbal abuse by his mother, Kate Gosselin, as well as his childhood institutionalization. He alleged that she isolated him from his siblings and at one point kept him in a locked basement room.
Kate Gosselin has disputed her son's allegations. In June, while responding to comments about Collin's claims on TikTok, she described the accusations as "ridiculous."
Her attorney, Richard Puleo, previously told The Sun that he did not believe Kate had done anything to “intentionally harm” Collin and said her actions were intended to protect herself and her family from what he characterized as Collin's “troubled behavior.”
Newsweek reached out to Kate Gosselin's representative via email for comment on Wednesday.
Collin, however, said his decision to speak publicly was ultimately about children rather than his dispute with his mother.
“My greatest intention is not to go out there and soil my mom,” he said on the podcast. “It is to advocate for children who have faced abuse, exploitation, abandonment, who have been silenced.”
Collin, whose memoir In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood was released on October 13, added that he wants his book and public appearances to encourage adults to recognize warning signs and take children seriously when they speak about mistreatment.
Gosselin also said he would welcome contact with his siblings, from whom he said he is now estranged.
Jill Duggar Dillard Reclaimed Her Story
Gosselin is not alone in revisiting a childhood that audiences once watched as entertainment.
Jill Duggar Dillard grew up on TLC as part of the family behind 19 Kids and Counting. Her 2023 memoir, Counting the Cost, described her upbringing, television career and conflicts with her family over issues including filming and money.
Dillard said her family's television income was controlled by her father, Jim Bob Duggar, and that she was not initially individually compensated for her appearances.
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Explaining the decision to publish her story, she wrote, per TODAY, that she felt “voices were still being silenced.”
Jim Bob Duggar and wife Michelle Duggar responded to their daughter's memoir without addressing its allegations individually. “We've aimed to deal honorably with our children, our finances, and our other endeavors,” they said in a statement to People, adding that they did not believe family conflicts should be resolved “through the media or in a public forum.”
Like Gosselin, her memoir shifted the perspective from parents presenting family life to an adult child describing how that experience felt from inside the household.
Other Reality Children Have Raised Questions
Jacob Roloff, who appeared on Little People, Big World as a child, has similarly become publicly critical of growing up within reality television.
Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson became famous as a young child on Toddlers & Tiaras before her family received its own series, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
As an adult, she has publicly questioned what happened to money she earned during her childhood television career. “I worked, I was six,” Thompson said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight (ET) in 2024. “I worked really hard for what I have.”
Her mother, June Shannon, disputed the suggestion that she had simply taken her daughter's earnings, telling ET, “I didn't really steal any money.” She acknowledged spending money Thompson earned from Dancing With the Stars: Juniors, however, saying it went toward household bills and other expenses and that she had placed a portion of the earnings into Thompson's Coogan account, a bank account for child actors.
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In 2025, Thompson told People her mother, June Shannon, had returned $35,000 connected with Thompson's Dancing With the Stars: Juniors appearance, while Thompson also claimed she had not received money earned from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
The circumstances surrounding Gosselin, Dillard, Roloff and Thompson are different. What connects their stories is more fundamental: each became publicly recognizable through family entertainment while still a child, and each eventually reached adulthood with something to say about that experience.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Megan Cartwright, Gray R. Thomas