KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN

by Robert Hoffman

  KATE’S A REGULAR MOM –

  SHE DOES HER OWN GROCERY SHOPPING

  Kate and her handlers worked tirelessly to hone her image as a mom of 8, count ’em, 8 kids who does it all, and does it all far better than any other mediocre mom in the world. These excerpts from a blog Kate wrote in August of 2010 documents how hard it is to be her at the grocery store:

  Kate says “the sheer amount of food I buy at the grocery store each week still amazes me!! You’re probably thinking, wouldn’t she, by now, be accustomed to the fact that she has to wrestle two grocery carts through the store each week (or every other, at least)?”

  She says that she’s still known to announce her “disbelief at the piled-high carts” as she unloads them onto the weary conveyor belt. She says that she swears that she’s heard them pleading for mercy, more than once as she came towards the checkout.

  She thinks the other customers must surely hear her inner dialogue become outer dialogue but they know whom she’s feeding so they “tend to empathize.” They must also feel pity for her as she bags 20 to 25 bags of groceries (and yes, Kate says that she bags them all herself!)

  Oh, where to begin with this one? I have followed Kate for more than a year to the Giant grocery store near her home. This also happens to be the grocery store that I’ve been shopping at several times a week for years, so I know most of the checkout people who work there. I’ve sat in the parking lot watching Kate exit the grocery store more times than I can count, and I have never, ever, seen Kate with a second shopping cart. Most days she’s pushing one of the small, single-serving carts because she’s just stopping in to buy a few items on the way home from tanning or the nail salon. I’ve seen her with a single full cart maybe once or twice around the holidays. I have three kids, not eight, yet I come out of the store with twice the amount of groceries as Kate does for eight kids and herself. How is that possible?

  It’s possible because Kate has someone to do her bulk shopping for her, and she has meals prepared for her by her personal chef who delivers the food to her house each week, pre-cooked and ready to be heated and served. All Kate has to do is warm the food up in the oven; most days, a paid employee takes care of that chore as well.

  I don’t begrudge Kate the luxury of having personal shoppers and a chef. If she can afford it, she should enjoy it. I’d do the exact same thing. I hate grocery shopping and I don’t enjoy preparing family meals. The problem with this whole grocery shopping thing is that Kate is lying about it and laughing all the way to the kitchen. And her eight little faces are footing the bill and being forced to eat leftovers and rotten food for lunch at school.

  To answer her critics who said Kate doesn’t do her own grocery shopping, TLC packed up Kate and all eight of her children and took them to Giant for some family grocery shopping. The entire TLC camera crew was there to document it, you know, to prove that Kate was not lying. As was standard procedure, Kate then went on a TV talk show to bore the world with her tales of grocery shopping woe.

  In February 2011, Kate was a guest on The George Lopez Show. She told George that she usually has three shopping carts and said, “I warn people. You do not want to be behind me.”

  In the nearly two years I followed Kate, I never saw her take all eight kids ANYWHERE alone, let alone to the grocery store. It would drive her absolutely insane to be distracted while shopping. And the part about three shopping carts filled with groceries was more nonsense. The only time I ever saw Kate pushing more than one shopping cart was when TLC was filming.

  Kate got a lot of mileage out of the grocery shopping stories on Twitter, impressing her fans with her ability to overcome such a difficult chore. Kate tweeted about what a “HUGE” task it was:

  Ahhh..home sweet home!Groc shopping is a HUGE task! 2carts then all the put away;I’m TIRED!NOT complaining;glad I can put food on r table!;)

  By September, with no television show or tabloid interested in her and her mundane drivel, she continued to take to Twitter to awe her fans with her grocery shopping prowess:

  I miss u guys! I'll b on later..Put away $700 groc,made dinner, packed lunches, Mady did showers (God bless her) exhausted but I'll b here!

  Don’t ever let my two heaped up carts intimidate you :)

  Kate gets around her grocery shopping lie like she gets around many of her lies. She leaves out information. She cleverly doesn’t say that she actually went grocery shopping, only that she “put away” her groceries. Nobody asked if she physically went and bought the groceries herself though, which of course she didn’t, and she certainly wasn’t going to volunteer the information that a paid employee did it, as has always been the case since she became a “star.”

  One day in March 2012, I was grocery shopping at the Giant in Wyomissing, and Kate was there at the same time. As usual, she was pushing only one of the small-sized shopping carts. She wasn’t struggling with two or three large carts like she always says she does. I’m a gentleman (believe it or not), and I was with my kids, so I gave Kate plenty of space. I didn’t approach her. I didn’t try to talk to her. I didn’t even smile and wave to her. I just observed her from a distance of 15 to 20 feet away. She came up behind us to get that close, not the other way around.

  As we were checking out simultaneously, I took her picture with my iPhone. Kate scowled at me in a way that I had never been scowled at before. She had pure hatred in her eyes. I don’t think she even remembers who I am or what I look like. For all she knew, I was an adoring fan simply snapping a quick photo.

  MY CHILDREN WERE NOT EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL

  “I have eight of the most well-adjusted,

  healthy, happy children…that ever were.”

  – Kate Gosselin

  10.5.09 Today Show with Meredith Vieira

  In late 2010, it was widely reported by the tabloids and most major news-gathering organizations that two of the Gosselin children were expelled from their kindergarten. I had known about the situation for over a month, but out of respect for Jon and the children, I said nothing. After it was reported online, a week went by with no response from Kate or Discovery. I figured the reason for the deafening silence was because they didn’t know how to spin it in Kate’s favor.

  Finally, People magazine, the great Kate Gosselin apologist, gave us the first hint of Discovery’s spin control, while paying Kate her usual big money:

  A ‘source’ tells PEOPLE, “The situation is being grossly overstated. The kids are going through a challenging time, but Kate doesn’t feel this is something that should be discussed publicly. It is a private matter.”

  TLC had no comment, but a ‘source close to the situation’ says Kate’s number one concern is protecting her children and is keeping this personal situation as a private matter that she works out with her kids.”

  A “source.” Nice work publicists. If only you would have stopped there, this book would never have been written. But you didn’t.

  After a full week of thinking until their brains were hurting, Discovery finally came up with the lie, (otherwise known as the legal technicality and navigation around the truth), and they arranged for Kate to take to the airwaves with their spoon-fed story that the kids were not “expelled.” They obviously subscribe to the theory that if you say something loud enough and often enough, people start believing it is true.

  So, in her earnest efforts to keep the kids’ expulsion a “private matter” and not discuss it “publicly,” thus “protecting her children during this personal situation,” Kate very non-privately talked to ET’s Mary Hart about it. Mary asked Kate the pre-approved question of the day: Were two of your children expelled? This was Kate’s circumnavigation of the truth:

  “Two of my children, no, are being tutored at home, with a teacher who is working closely with our kindergarten teachers in school, doing the identical curriculum.”

  “The pressure was getting to them. You have the divorce anger mixed in with that. The goal is to get them back into school as soon as possible.”


  Then came the “not discussing it publicly” interview on the Today show. On December 1, 2010, Kate sat down with Meredith Vieira to, once again, keep the matter private and set the record straight for us. This is part of that interview:

  Meredith Vieira: “Let’s separate fact from fiction, beginning with your kids. Two of the sextuplets, Collin and Alexis, reports are that they were expelled from their school. True or false?”

  Kate Gosselin: “That is false. They were not expelled from school. We have a situation where we are in, my kids are in an academically excelling school, where um, academics are pushed and I fully support it, combined with kids who are having just gone through a divorce of their parents, suffering all of those normal feelings, and the two collided and you know, they just were not doing well with the combination.”

  “They were having anger issues. They were acting out, having behavior things, um, things that, I felt very alone but once I did the research, talked to other moms, you know that have gone through divorces, very normal, normal stuff in that regard and, so I did what I could do, we mutually agreed, I brought them home. I have them with a private tutor um, early education teacher, and she’s teaching them one on one. All is well again.”

  Dealing with the very normal results of a divorce. I think we have done very well, I knew going through a divorce, I knew to watch for stuff. It will happen and this is not abnormal at all.”

  "Along with weekly therapy. My kids are back. They're happy. They're functioning and all is well again."

  Kate also told Vieira, “It was a mutually agreed upon removal until the school figures out how to deal with their needs.”

  In the most technical sense, Kate was correct when she said the kids were not “expelled.” They weren’t “expelled” only because the school didn’t use the word “expelled” when it requested that the Gosselin kids be removed.

  On April 1, 2011, exactly four months to the day after Kate’s interview with Meredith Vieira, when the issue should have been long forgotten by the media (which it was since nobody was mentioning it at all), Kate, in promoting the new season of her show Kate Plus Ei8ht, went on the Today show with Matt Lauer and started it all up again. I say Kate started it up because she was only allowed to be asked specific, pre-approved questions given to the interviewer by her publicist in advance. Her publicist was always standing just off camera watching and waiting to pull the plug if the interview started to go sour. Here’s an excerpt from the Today show interview:

  Matt Lauer discussing the kids who were expelled: ” …There were reports that they had been kicked out of school, you actually took them out because they were having some behavior issues (Kate is nodding yes like a bobblehead to Matt) they’re still at home, they’re not back in school, why?”

  Kate: “Um, they’re actually starting to integrate, back in, um, within the very immanent future, and, um, there was actual medical issues um, that we dealt with, that um, they’re doing wonderfully at home, they’re reading at the top level of kindergarten, as well as writing and they’re doing amazingly well so I know looking back now, I, I made the right decision, I did the right thing and they’re blossoming so …”

  Matt: I think you even said at the time, you were open about it, you said that clearly there is some fallout from a divorce here, there is the emotional strain of that, so in terms of those two children and the others, are any of them exhibiting some negative behaviors that you think can be attributed to the divorce you went through?

  Kate: “Um, every child who’s parents um, are you know divorced will go through some negative behaviors, I mean, um, Collin and Alexis’s therapist said, you know, a third of the kids will sail through perfectly, a third of the kids will do horribly and a third of the kids will, um, get through it with counseling, so she said you don’t ever know which kids will do what but um, the most important thing is for me to have a positive attitude, um, to pick up you know, where our family left off and to continue on with those traditions which is what I’m doing, and, um, we’re actually, we’re really, we’re good now.”

  Through Kate’s TV interviews, it is easy to identify the four stages of Kate’s and Discovery’s “The Kids Were Not Expelled” lie:

  One: No comment. It’s a private matter.

  Two: The kids are being tutored at home.

  Three: The school and Kate mutually agreed and Kate brought them home.

  Four: There were some medical issues we were dealing with so I pulled them out.

  Now let’s examine the truth. In a letter from October 2010, Junior Thiry, business manager for the kids’ school, informed Kate that she would be receiving a tuition refund “As a result of the separation from school for Alexis & Collin, at the request of the school.” Thiry explained that, effective October 22, 2010, a prorated tuition refund in the amount of $3,856.27 for each child was going to be processed the next week. He also enclosed a statement for one-on-one support through October 8, 2010, and said that a final invoice for support would be forthcoming soon.

  That one-on-one support obviously didn’t help the situation, so the school was left with no other choice but to “separate” the children from the school. No matter how Kate/TLC/Discovery tried to spin it, and what words they chose to use, the fact is the children were made to leave the school.

  The National Enquirer had it right when they posted the following on their sister website, radaronline.com:

  One of the expelled Gosselin kids physically harmed an adult at the school TWO TIMES, creating a situation that caused school administrators to believe they had no choice but to remove that child from school.

  The nature and extent of the adult's injuries are not known, but the situation was severe enough that it contributed heavily to the school's decision to expel the children.

  Both of the Gosselin children were abusive to other children in the school, creating an untenable situation.

  Both Jon and Kate were sent a letter from the head of school explaining that despite their best efforts, staff had reached a point at which they had to request the children enroll in another program.

  While the teacher was able to achieve some success, it became apparent to the school that the pair needed intensive assistance to help them with their social, emotional and academic needs.

  “The demand on the children's classroom teachers -- and the impact on other kids -- was just too great.”

  When Kate’s fans hounded her for more information, Kate did what she does best – she first pleaded ignorance and then she lied:

  xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 How r u handling the problem with the kids getting expelled from school? I cant believe a school would to that to 8 ur. Olds

  not sure what ur talking about. I have no kids who have been expelled& no 8 ur olds at all. Sure this was for me? :)

  2011

  xxxxx hey @kateplusmy8, weren't two of your kids expelled from school for bullying? #appledoesntfalltoofarfromthetree #plasticsurgeryhypocrite

  nope. Don't believe rumors! Thanks for asking so I could clear it up! Xo

  I later found out that the situation was even worse than I originally knew. In 2012, I learned some new details about the expulsion of the Gosselin children and their interactions, or lack of interactions, with certain school employees, as well as Kate’s treatment of them at home over the summer. I believe this information will come out soon after this book is published from the people who should be dealing with the situation. This is one part of the story that I can’t divulge, because I gave my word that I wouldn’t.

  “When I speak, um, my yardstick is my kids.

  They can pull this up forever. I don’t want them to see

  anything that’s negative that came out of my mouth.”

  – Kate Gosselin

  Kate on the Ellen DeGeneres show, 2009

  YOU’LL NEVER HEAR ME BASHING JON ON TV

  On February 15, 2011, Kate told the ladies from The Talk, “I didn’t want my kids to see me on the Today show bashing their father
. I won’t do it. You will never hear me do it. He will always be their father.”

  It must have slipped Kate’s mind that, while on the Today show on December 1, 2010, discussing very private family issues such as two of her 6-year-old children being expelled from kindergarten, she complained to Meredith Vieira about Jon. Showing frustration and anger, Kate said, “I have never personally been apologized to,” and added that she doesn’t consider “an interview on TV or a tabloid” the appropriate venue to discuss deep-seated family issues.

  Kate must have also forgotten what she said on the Regis & Kelly show on September 10, 2010, when she told the world that the kids don’t like spending time with Jon. Despite starting off the interview by saying “I do try to keep things as peaceful as possible with Jon,” Kate immediately commented on how much the kids don’t like spending time with him.

  Anderson Cooper, filling in for Regis Philbin, asked Kate what she does with her time while the kids are with Jon. Kate responded, “I basically wait for the phone call for how many of them want to come home.” She continued by saying, “It’s hard to explain to your kids who want to be at home playing with their toys and sleeping in their bed and spending time with me.” Then she said that when she’s able, she brings them home.

  This is an excerpt about the situation from my US Weekly reporting that week: