All the horrific details of abuse Kate Gosselin's estranged son Collin claims he endured... but viewers never saw

The details are harrowing: An 11-year-old boy, wrists and ankles bound tightly with zip ties, is picked up and then slammed into the hard concrete floor of an unfinished basement.

He can feel the circulation cutting off in his arms and legs, a dull burning at his wrists and ankles from where the sharp plastic of the too-taut zip ties is digging into his skin. His tailbone is bruised and sore from breaking his fall onto the floor.

The real pain, however, comes from the cutting words which, he alleges, are hurled at him by the woman who has just thrown him to the ground in a rage: his mother.

'You're a burden, Collin! You're a burden to this whole family.'

It's a recollection that feels like a horror story, but according to Collin Gosselin, it was just another day in his childhood as a reality TV star once the cameras were no longer rolling.

This shocking story is just one of many chilling allegations that Collin, 22, makes about his upbringing with his estranged mother, Kate Gosselin, 51, in his new memoir called In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood. The book recounts his time on the TLC reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8, which catapulted Collin, his seven siblings – fellow sextuplets Aaden, Alexis, Hannah, Joel and Leah, and twin sisters, Mady and Cara – and their parents, Jon and Kate, to fame.

Filled with horrific allegations of physical, verbal and emotional child abuse, the narrative he presents is a far cry from the sometimes chaotic but always cheery family life in suburban Pennsylvania that was sold to millions of viewers each week.

Indeed, the picture he paints is of a childhood rife with alleged violence and casual cruelty – treatment for which, Collin claimed, he was singled out as retaliation for his reticence to being filmed for the show.

Collin first appeared on-screen at 15 months old, in a Discovery Health one-hour special called Surviving Sextuplets and Twins in 2006. Kate, having married Jon in 1999 two years after meeting at a quaint picnic in town, was 'devastated' when she was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) which could limit her chances of having children. The couple turned to fertility treatments, specifically Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), and twins Mady and Cara were born in 2000.

Speaking in 2009, Kate recalled in an interview: 'I had everything I had ever hoped and prayed for: a loving and devoted husband, two chubby-cheeked, silky-haired, pint-sized daughters, a cozy home and a rewarding career as a neo-natal nurse. It was the American dream - but I was having dreams of another sort.'

Those dreams were for more children. After another round of IUI, Kate had sextuplets, believed to be only the second set ever born in Pennsylvania. Having eight children all under the age of four was the impetus for the series, which led to Jon & Kate Plus 8.

The show first debuted on Discovery Health, and went on to run on TLC for a combined total of five seasons, from 2007 to 2009. It was wildly successful – reportedly earning TLC $186 million every quarter.

After Jon and Kate announced their divorce after 10 years of marriage, the show became Kate Plus 8. That iteration ran for a further six seasons, from 2010 to 2017.

According to Collin, who had been on camera as long as he could remember, since there were no laws at the time to protect children on reality TV while they were filming Jon and Kate Plus 8, he and his siblings could be filmed constantly, 'as much as the studio wanted' and 'as much as my mother wanted.'

'Adults with cameras and boom mics were as present in my daily life as my own siblings,' he writes in the book, noting that one of his earliest memories is of peeking out of his room at the age of three during bedtime to look at a cameraman standing in the hallway.

According to Collin's book, the family's reality TV fame came at the detriment of their personal lives and happiness. He alleged that their time in the spotlight was driven by Kate, who he paints as overbearing in her ambition and singularly obsessed with celebrity, power and wealth.

'My mom was the only one truly thriving,' he writes, while describing his father as someone who 'moved through it all like someone who had accepted a job he never applied for, cooperative but resigned.'

Collin said he began to chafe at what he alleged were Kate's demands for him to perform or present a certain way during filming.

'We appeared to be a happy thriving family from the outside, but on the inside, I felt deeply exploited and unloved,' he writes.

Collin claims that his mother exerted an iron-grip when it came to controlling the narrative of their family on-screen, as well as their life off-screen, down to the minutiae.

As a toddler, Collin recalled being berated by her for the smallest infractions, like not smiling for production a certain way.

'My mom was particularly hard on me, and on how I acted or how I presented myself,' he writes. 'My face had to be cheerful and pleasant. I had to be marketable. She'd remind me constantly to smile, and not just smile – smile correctly. I definitely didn't always want to smile, and the second I was less than cheerful and compliant, she'd shut it down.'

On the show, Kate was the clear disciplinarian of the parents, but Collin alleged that her strict persona became even more controlling and exacting when filming stopped.

One of Collin's 'most vivid memories' as a child is watching his parents have a screaming match, where he claims that Kate swung a pair of wired headphones at Jon so hard that they broke.

He writes: 'Because when the cameras were on, there were rules – unspoken ones, but rules all the same. Explosive fights like the one with the headphones wouldn't have happened when we were filming.

'But when the cameras turned off? The force field vanished and everything spilled out. All the anger. All the resentment. All the things my parents held back from the audience.'

Though Collin hated filming, he alleged that it offered him some respite from his mother's punishments. He claims that when cameras were up and rolling, his mother spoke more gently and would not subject him to physical abuse.

Once, Collin claimed, she pulled his ear so hard that his teacher took him to the school counselor's office, triggering a Children and Youth Services (CYS) investigation. 

The most agonizing allegation in In the Shadow of Eight, however, may be the claim that his mother isolated him from his siblings and his father, even going so far as to tell Collin that his father 'didn't want to see him' following their divorce.

In the book, Collin writes about being the only child in the family to be homeschooled and claims that he was forced to eat alone, after his siblings had finished their meals.

Later, at the age of nine, he was allegedly forced to live alone in a small and unfinished room in the basement, where he was locked in every night, with surveillance cameras watching his every move.

According to Collin, the small basement room was 'always cold' and was unfurnished, save for an air mattress and some books; he claims that he wasn't allowed to have toys.

This alleged isolation was so agonizing that Collin once tried to run away from home, though he ultimately returned when he realized he had nowhere to go to. Collin claims that this small bid for freedom resulted in the zip-tie incident.

He also claimed that his runaway attempt led to him being institutionalized at the age of 11, where he was prescribed a cocktail of psychiatric medications, including 'aripiprazole (an antipsychotic often used for mood stabilization), lamotrigine (a mood stabilizer, commonly prescribed for bipolar disorder), lorazepam (an anti-anxiety medication), Wellbutrin (an antidepressant), buspirone HCl (an anti-anxiety medication), and quetiapine fumarate (an antipsychotic often used for sedation or mood regulation).'

Collin claimed that later, after he was released, his mother would sometimes 'pinch my nose and push down on my neck in a rubbing motion' to force him to take the pills, in a similar motion to 'giving a dog medicine.'

Collin remained in and out of psychiatric institutions until he was 13 and his father was able to regain custody of him after a prolonged legal battle with Kate; sister Hannah also chose to live with Jon full-time in 2018.

According to Collin, his father had no idea that he had been committed and had allegedly been told by Kate that Collin did not want to see him. They were reunited after Collin's roommate smuggled a note from Collin to Jon after getting discharged.

The note read: 'I'm counting on you to get me out of here. Daddy, I love you. Save me.'

Kate has not released an official statement regarding her son's book but did respond to fans online who voiced their support for her this week.

She wrote in one comment: 'Thank you so much. I know rational logical ppl or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what's going on here:).'

Jon has not commented on the book but has supported Collin in the years since his divorce and as Collin made the allegations of his home life public. He said in 2024: 'I never found out about her [Kate] singling out Collin, and the basement and the zip ties, until way afterwards. That kind of thing didn't happen until after I left.'

The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for both Kate and Jon Gosselin for comment.

In 2023, Collin talked about his experience for the Vice Media documentary, Jon & Kate Plus 8: Family Circus, detailing the dark years when he was isolated and locked up.

Collin and his mother have been estranged since 2016, but Kate countered Collin's claims in the documentary by taking to her social media to release a statement.

She wrote on Instagram: 'My son Collin, whom I love with all my heart, has received multiple psychiatric diagnoses over the years. For the safety of myself, his brothers and sisters and for his own well-being, he was placed in a facility following years of outpatient treatment which proved insufficient for his needs.'

In the lengthy post Kate claimed that 'Collin's distorted perception of reality is one of the many issues that he has always struggled with.'

She wrote: 'Unfortunately, I believe Collin remains a very troubled young man who continues to need a lot of help.'

Collin claims to have not seen his mother since he was 12 and has not had contact with her in a decade, a relationship he has no interest in trying to rekindle now.

However, he hasn't lost hope for reconciliation with the six siblings from whom he remains estranged. He still speaks only to fellow sextuplet, Hannah but last saw the others when he was 15.

In his book he writes: 'I sincerely love all my siblings. If any of them ever read this, I hope they know that.

'To Mady, Cara, Alexis, Aaden, Leah, and Joel: No matter what's happened or what was said, no matter how things look from the outside – I love you. I always have and always will.'

His message to his mother in the book's acknowledgements is rather more pointed: 'And last, but least, a special thank-you to my mom, Kate. Without you, none of this would've been possible.'