Jon Gosselin reveals terrifying health scare: 'I could have died'

Jon Gosselin has opened up about a recent health scare that could have killed him just weeks before his wedding.

Speaking to Daily Mail about the ordeal, the former Jon & Kate Plus 8 star, 48, was preparing to tie the knot to then-fiancée Stephanie Lebo when he started to feel a 'grueling pain' in his leg.

By the next day, the pain had spread to his upper shoulder, and the following night, he woke up after midnight in a coughing fit.

'I was like, "Something is wrong,"' he recalled. 'I coughed up what looked like silly putty – it was a blood clot.'

Not wanting to wake anybody else up, Gosselin drove himself to the hospital – which he soon realized was 'the biggest no-no' given his condition.

'If you have deep-vein thrombosis you could die at the wheel,' he said.

After getting an MRI at the hospital, Gosselin was diagnosed with two bilateral pulmonary embolisms and then made to undergo an ultrasound.

'Stephanie was scared to death,' he said, before adding that his daughter Hannah and son Collin, 21, both 'freaked out' when they were heard about his health issues.

Thankfully, Gosselin was able to treat the problem with some help from a number of medications.

'I'm on heart meds, blood pressure meds, aspirin, and then I take Eliquis. It's a drug that prevents blood clots,' he explained.

'But I definitely could have died. If I had just stayed home that night, I could have had a real pulmonary embolism and just died.' 

Despite recovering, the former reality star-turned-DJ was left with a hefty $20,000 bill from the hospital, which he believes contained an unnecessary test. 

'It was a nonprofit hospital, so they get paid anyway and they billed me for the whole procedure,' he said.

'But there were weird things that happened. Like I got an MRI, right? They scanned my whole body for blood clots. But then they sent me for an ultrasound. Well, you already scanned my whole body, so you know where it is and you told me where it is,' he continued.

'So now you're gonna give me an ultrasound? You're double billing me!'

Puzzled by the pricey bill, Gosselin turned to healthcare strategist Rachel Strauss, who helps clients navigate the complicated and costly US healthcare system. 

'She literally went through my itemized bill, because I only saw the general bill of the actual procedures,' he said.

'But if you get the itemized bill and you have the dropdown codes for every procedure that's done, they have all the healthcare coding under each big procedure. It's all broken down. 

'And then she could explain what that code was and then she could ask me, like, "Did you have this done?" I'm like, "No." Or, "I don't know." Because nothing was really explained to me,' he continued.

'You shouldn't need a graduate degree to be able to read your health insurance and payments these days, which is why everyone's in trouble.' 

Gosselin and Strauss teamed up again over the weekend at the Sundance Film Festival, where the father-of-eight DJ'd a party at Kemo Sabe to celebrate a screening of Strauss' documentary, Side Effects May Include. 

'She helped me personally and opened my eyes to just how broken our healthcare system can be,' said Gosselin. 

'She is truly someone making a real difference and if you get an opportunity to see her film "Side Effects May Include" it will open your eyes as well.'

Several weeks after his health scare, Gosselin married Stephanie Lebo at The Barn at Silverstone in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in front of 180 people.

Notably, only two of Jon and ex-wife Kate Gosselin's eight children – Hannah and Collin – were in attendance, with Collin acting as a groomsman in the ceremony. 

His other six children – Madelyn, Cara, Aaden, Leah, Alexis and Joel – were all absent amid their ongoing estrangement from their father.

Gosselin, his ex-wife Kate and their large family became a reality TV sensation in the late 2000s thanks to the runaway success of their TLC series, Jon & Kate Plus 8.

The former couple married in 1999 and welcomed twins Madelyn and Cara, both 25; followed by their sextuplets Aaden, Hannah, Leah, Alexis, Collin and Joel, who were born as a result of In vitro fertilization. 

Their divorce was finalized in 2009.

Hannah and Collin both went to live with Jon in the wake of his split with Kate; Collin appeared to slam Kate in a social media post last year, indicating potential rifts in the family. 

Gosselin said in a 2025 interview with E News! that he hadn’t spoken with his ex-wife in around seven years.

'We don’t communicate,' he said. 'I think the last time I heard her voice in person was, like, 2018.'