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

by Robert Hoffman

  Hello Everyone at Gymboree!!!

  My name is Kate Gosselin. I recently (05/04) gave birth to sextuplets.

  We also have twin 4-year-old girls

  !

  Since my twins were born, I have been an avid and eager shopper at our local Gymboree (store #467). I was famous for calling all the local Gymborees if two of things were not available! The employees at our local store are awesome, always willing to help me find what I want. Since I found out I was pregnant with “the six,” as I get a chance I go to Gymboree. The last time I was there, Kelly wrote down the customer service phone number and urged me to call – explaining that she feels that Gymboree should hear my story and should donate to our eight children! I held the number for a while and finally called! Kelly was very insistent – she knows my passion for Gymboree and understands that with eight children, times are tough!

  If you have a desire to help, please contact me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. In addition, if there is a way my children could be a help in marketing your clothing lines, we’re all for it! Gymboree’s wholesome and hearty clothing is definitely worth our time! Thank you for your style and kindness in my unique situation! Please feel free to visit our website www.sixgosselins.com.

  Sincerely,

  Kate Gosselin

  I also found a handwritten list of some of Kate’s “Ideas to pitch” from the very early days. She wanted her own product line consisting of umbrella triplet strollers; highchairs that convert to strollers; carseat juice cup holders; her own show on the Travel Channel showcasing large family traveling; and a list of the books that she wanted to write. The cookbook was on there but according to the list, we can look forward to another fake book about the secrets of shopping for ten nine.

  There were so many examples of Kate trying to cash in on her babies, I had to devote an entire chapter to it.

  I HAVE NO MONEY TO FEED MY KIDS AND PAY MY BILLS

  “You’ve left your children and their mother unable to pay for the roof

  over their heads.… I need that money to provide for them.”

  – Kate Gosselin

  On October 5, 2009, Kate sat down with Meredith Vieira on the Today show and gave a tearful, emotional interview about her tragic financial circumstances. Here’s some of the text from that interview, as published on msnbc.com:

  Kate Gosselin: Jon Took the Money and Ran

  Mon., Oct. 5, 2009 7:47 AM PDT by BREANNE L. HELDMAN

  The family as a whole may have made major bucks from their hit TLC show, but Kate Gosselin is currently living hand-to-mouth.

  Reports that Jon Gosselin removed $230,000 from the family's joint bank account and leaving her with only $1,000 are true, she tells Meredith Vieira on the Today show this morning.

  "I have a stack of bills in my purse I can't drop in the mail," she says, choking up. "The last thing I wanted was to do this show and end up not being able to pay our bills."

  Given all the drama, the star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 admits, "Every morning, I don't know what I'm going to wake up to…[Jon] has gone way far off the trail."

  Kate admits for the first time that she feared Jon might do something like this, and removed $100,000 from the account earlier in the divorce process.

  "At some point, I removed it to keep it safe on the suggestion of my lawyer but needed to put it back, according to the arbitrator," she says. "I did that."

  She claims she only did this because Jon had already removed funds from the account just before the divorce was filed, and she was afraid.

  "I had taken $100,000 and put it aside safely so I could buy my kids food if this occurred," she says. "I was afraid. He was literally buying erratic purchases, randomly purchasing things. The last thing I wanted was to do this show and end up not being able to pay my bills."

  When Kate came forward about it, the pair split the change 50/50, and she used it to pay bills, while he "did whatever with it."

  As for Jon's claims that the eight kids no longer wish to participate in the reality show, Kate claims the children were "wailing and sobbing" not to be seeing the crew since last week's filming halt.

  The octomom feels the show needs to go on, and not just because the income helps keep the family afloat.

  "It's something that the kids and I are still enjoying," she says. "The opportunities that they've been provided—I don't say that lightly—we were supposed to be in New York now to see the Statue of Liberty and the kids are having trouble understanding why they're not here and why they're not doing that.

  "I don't feel like it's time to end it. If we are all enjoying it, I just feel like Kate Plus 8 going on, the nine of us who want to continue it, should be able to do it."

  Jon, however, does have the power to end the show for good.

  "He can do it, because TLC has always said if one of us didn't want it to happen anymore, and obviously they're not going to stand in his way. Jon is a parent. He does have that right to say that, but I wish he would think harder about it because it has ended our income and our paychecks and our opportunities."

  Despite both parents' claims for desires of peace, Kate doesn't see it as imminent. Nor the three-month delay in the divorce proceedings.

  "I do not believe there will be any 90-day stalling of this process," she tells Vieira. "Peace is really far away, and I just have to say again, I never wanted to be sitting here and discussing details. I think in the end, actions speak louder than words…I know that my actions are solely for the kids, to better the kids. I have a lot of peace about this because I know in the end, my actions are appropriate, well thought out and with the kids in mind."

  We have to ask, though—if Kate's in New York chatting up the Today show and Jon's in Los Angeles making milkshakes, who is with the eight?

  At the time of this interview, as Kate was crying crocodile tears and telling the world that she was worried about being able to buy her kids food, and she had a stack of bills in her purse that she couldn’t drop in the mail, she actually had at least ten bank accounts, each containing $200,000 or more, which is the maximum the federal government will insure. In addition, she had many investment accounts. She wanted everyone to focus on the one account that was left with $1,000 in it to give the impression that it was her only money. This would earn her sympathy while at the same time, make Jon look like a monster. When I say she, of course, I mean her and her public relations team at Discovery. That one account in question was just the main account she used to pay the bills, but she actually had access to several million dollars at the time, in other accounts.

  As noted earlier, Kate’s 2008 tax return showed an adjusted gross income of $1,954,414.00 for the year. That’s one million, nine hundred and fifty-four thousand, four hundred and fourteen dollars. 2009, was an even better year for her financially. She got a huge raise for Season 5 of Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht, clomped around on Dancing With The Stars for a lot of money, and filmed Kate Plus Ei8ht, for which she reportedly earned $250,000 per episode, just to name a few sources of income.

  In the Vieira interview, when Kate said, “At some point, I removed it (the money) to keep it safe on the suggestion of my lawyer…,” the “At some point” are the key words. This is Kate’s PR team having her telling kind of the truth, while making it appear that Jon removed money first, and Kate took her money as a reaction to him. “At some point” is like saying “I have no recollection of that.” It’s safe and it holds up in court. But according to the bank statements I’ve seen, Kate was the first to remove large amounts of money from the couple’s joint account.

  I came across something very interesting in the Gosselin divorce documents. I know for a fact that Kate had control over all of the family’s money. Why would that be a problem when they were happy and working together? It wouldn’t be. The problem, though, is that once the marriage was on the rocks, Kate still had total control of the money, and Jon was at her mercy.

  Jon’s attorney filed a petition that included the following:

  f. Paragraph 3 – W
ife failed to provide a written explanation for the disposition of withdrawals on the Spreadsheet of Accounts created by Husband’s counsel within twenty (20) days of the date of the Award. These withdrawals totaled over $1,000,000 between February 2008 and June 2009.

  According to this paragraph, Kate withdrew over one million dollars between February 2008 and June 2009 from the joint accounts without accounting for it to Jon. That’s right about the time that their marriage started to crumble and Kate was moving on with her life.

  In December 2011, I found some of Kate’s personal bank statements and investment information. Here’s a list of some of Kate’s investment accounts. These are just the investment accounts that I know about. It is possible there are even more.

  LPL FINANCIAL

  THORNBURG INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

  OAKMARK

  PIMCO FUNDS

  BLACKROCK

  AMERICAN CENTURY INVESTMENTS

  JANUS GLOBAL & INTERNATIONAL FUNDS

  OPPENHEIMER FUNDS

  MFS INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

  PRINCIPAL FUNDS

  IVY FUNDS

  J.P. MORGAN

  These accounts continue to grow, even as Kate is still accepting gifts from teenagers and Twitter followers who are under the impression that Kate needs financial help to support her children. Kate is a very wealthy woman, yet in 2012, she continued to plead poverty and accept gifts from teenage fans and stay-at-home-moms via Twitter. Here is one of Kate’s crying poor tweets from July 17, 2012.

  Awww yeah. I thought same thing. It IS tough to cover costs of large Fam-I’m struggling- but hoping my decisions are rewarded!:)

  THE HAWAII WAHAHE’E (That means lie)

  “You know, I go back very often to our vow renewal in Hawaii.

  I think very often of it, and in that moment, I meant those vows.

  And there was no option for us other than to be together.

  And so much has changed.”

  – Kate Gosselin

  I wonder how it could be so easy for such a lie to spew forth from Kate’s lips. The Gosselin’s marriage was quietly over for almost a year by the time Jon and Kate traveled with their family, crew and helpers to Hawaii to renew their wedding vows before God (and the TLC audience). Jon and Kate went along with the charade to keep the show going and to keep the money pouring in.

  Here is a timeline to help keep matters straight:

  August 12, 2008 – Marriage vows renewed in Hawaii; TLC filmed it during the fourth season of Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht.

  October 21, 2008 – Jon and Kate move into their new, million-dollar house where Jon immediately begins living in the apartment above the garage.

  June 22, 2009 – The divorce papers are filed.

  December 18, 2009 – The divorce becomes official.

  In the divorce papers, Kate claimed that she and Jon had been living “separate and apart” for at least two years. I’ve read that part as well, but it has been disputed as a typo or a technicality by Kate’s people. I know from conducting interviews and from reading things I probably shouldn’t have been reading, that the happy marriage was over long before Kate took her vows before God in Hawaii.

  In one of the final episodes of Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht, in June of 2009 while discussing their separation, Kate herself said “We haven’t really known where we’re going, but we’ve been dealing with this for a long time.

  I found even more evidence that the Gosselin marriage was a sham as early as the summer of 2008. When Kate was filming her “reality” show with her family in North Carolina on Bald Head Island, she took many photos with her camera, as any normal mother would do. But as I was going through those photos, like any normal tabloid reporter would do, it struck me that I found no pictures at all of Jon with the kids taken by Kate. Not one single picture of Jon, Kate’s husband and father of her eight, count em’, eight children. None. Nada. Zip.

  Oddly enough, Kate took many pictures of someone else who was on that family vacation and whom you probably didn’t know was there. If you guessed that the someone else was Steve Neild, you would be correct. Kate took lots of pictures of Steve, her bodyguard and rumored love interest, either alone or playing with her kids. That would be unheard of in a happy marriage, especially considering the fact that Kate didn’t capture a single image of Jon. Something like that just wouldn’t happen in a healthy marriage.

  According to an entry in Kate’s journal from April 24, 2007, she spoke of having a discussion with Jon in the garage because there were “(important marriage issues that needed to be cleared up!)”. It would seem that something serious was going on in the marriage even way back then, two years before the divorce papers were filed.

  In November of 2009, when Kate sat down with Natalie Morales for a TLC special called Kate: Her Story, Natalie asked Kate, “Who called it quits? Who first said, we can’t make this work?”

  Kate said, “There was a lot of discussions sometime last year (2008), because we knew at some point something had to give. It was a very mutually agreed upon thing.”

  According to my sources, the fact is that Kate had unofficially and quietly kicked Jon out of her bed in June of 2007. But a year later, she was standing in Hawaii, lying to the world and, more importantly, to her children and to God, just so she could keep her money train rolling down the track. She and TLC/Discovery were lying to the viewers and laughing all the way to the bank.

  Were the vows really necessary though? Couldn’t they have just continued to film the show and pretended everything was OK? Nope. This was the ultimate “I’m smarter than you” Kate Gosselin/Discovery lie. How far was Kate prepared to take this lie? What if US Weekly had never gotten their hands on that photo of Jon and Deanna Hummel coming out of Legends nightclub in Reading, PA, and exposing potential marital problems? Would we still be watching Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht each week on TLC and thinking everything was all right?

  All Jon and Kate ever wanted to do in Hawaii was to go there to visit Jon’s family, and get a free vacation out of it. They pitched the idea to TLC several times, but got shot down each time. Kate got more and more insistent that they get to go to Hawaii, and Discovery finally caved.

  They could have just filmed a nice, wholesome family reunion show in Hawaii, but TLC/Discovery got greedy and wanted to do something much bigger. They were looking to up the ratings ante, so they devised the plan to do a Jon and Kate wedding vow renewal episode…several episodes actually. Discovery didn’t want to spend all that money on travel and only get one episode out of it, so they milked it for all it was worth. They broke the fake trip into four separate episodes: “Hawaii, Here We Come,” “Legos & Safaris,” “Leis & Luaus,” and finally…“For Better or Worse.”

  In considering the whole Hawaii situation, some nagging questions arise: If Jon had a feeling – even if unwarranted – that Kate was having an affair with Steve Neild (as Jon has said many times in interviews), and if the marriage vow renewal was in fact real and not faked just for filming, then how could Kate disrespect Jon so much by allowing Steve Neild to accompany them on the 2-week trip to San Diego and Hawaii? Knowing of Jon’s concerns, how could Kate possibly justify letting Steve stand near her and Jon while they renewed their marriage vows? If Kate truly loved Jon at that time (as she has said over and over on the interview trail), how could she be so inconsiderate of his feelings as to allow Steve to accompany them? If Kate and Steve were having an affair, how could she be so crass as to bring Steve along and rub Jon’s nose in it? None of it makes any sense.

  But hold on, you say. There’s no evidence that Steve was there, you say. You watched the four Hawaiian trip episodes, and the only person on the trip besides the film crew was Jenny the babysitter, you say. Well I watched those episodes, too, and initially I thought the very same thing. It turns out you and I were wrong.

  At the very end of the “Leis & Luaus” episode, when they’re on the catamaran watching sea turtles and coral, we see Jon laying on his stomach getting some sun. For a spli
t-second, to Jon’s right, down the ladder and to the right, leaning backwards and trying to hide from the cameras, you can clearly see none other than Steve Neild and his wife, Gina, in their bathing suits. Having the luxury of watching them on DVD using slow motion and pause makes all the difference in the world when doing investigative research. Oh, and I also have all of Kate’s personal photos from the trip, so that made the investigation a little easier.

  In reality, this trip wasn’t what it appeared to be to the viewing audience. It wasn’t a trip planned by Jon and Kate to renew their marriage vows and to look forward to another “90 years” as Kate told Jon during the episode. This was nothing more than a business trip or working vacation, with family friends. Steve and Gina Neild were there along with their own kids, no doubt having the time of their lives.

  Another interesting thing I discovered was that there was another TLC reality show couple in Hawaii at the same time as Jon and Kate. It turns out that Matt and Amy Roloff, the married couple from the TLC show “Little People, Big World” were also there.

  Was it just a coincidence that they got together for a photo op with Jon and Kate? I’d say no if asked. It sure looks like a TLC-sponsored outing was going on in Hawaii that week. So was this a genuine renewal of marriage vows or a business trip?