The Depressing Reality Of Kate Gosselin's Life Today

The Gosselins were never quite the Kardashians, but for a hot minute, they were reality TV royalty in their own right. Kate and Jon Gosselin — plus their twins, Mady and Cara, and sextuplets, Aaden, Alexis, Collin, Hannah, Leah, and Joel — had viewers glued to "Jon and Kate Plus 8," watching in awe (and maybe a little horror) as they navigated life with eight kids. The world couldn't look away. But the cameras stopped rolling, the Gosselin kids grew up, Jon moved on, and Kate? She's still trying to catch up.

At her peak, Kate was TLC's golden child, even scoring a spinoff after her divorce from Jon. But despite the fame, she's not exactly looking back on it fondly. "If I could go back, I wouldn't spend so much time worrying about the messes and the obsessive compulsiveness and needing to be so in control," she told People. "I should have just rolled around on the floor some. I wouldn't have melted down as much." Unfortunately for Kate, time machines aren't a thing, and her time in the spotlight has since come to a close.

These days, Kate's life is a far cry from the red-carpet appearances and primetime interviews. Reality TV may have catapulted her to fame, but it also left her with fractured family relationships and a forced return to normal life. Here's a closer look at the not-so-glamorous reality of Kate Gosselin's life today.

Kate Gosselin once ruled reality TV, but after "Jon and Kate Plus 8" and its spinoff "Kate Plus 8" left the air, her attempts to reclaim the spotlight didn't pan out. Her first shot came in 2019 with "Kate Plus Date," a show where she tried to find love on screen. "[This job] fell in my lap and I made the best of an amazing opportunity and I don't regret it," she shared with ABC News at the time. "I mean people try to stand in the way of me doing my job but like, don't you rely on your job to pay your bills?" The premise had potential, but the show was a one-and-done affair — as were her prospects for landing more work.

By 2023, Kate gave it another go, popping up on "Special Forces: World's Toughest Test," a grueling boot camp reality show starring everyone from Jamie Lynn Spears to Spice Girl Mel B and The Bachelorette's Hannah Brown. It should've been a chance for her to prove she still had that competitive edge — except she didn't even make it past the pilot episode. A physical injury had her out on day one. "I'm still so pissed. I'm so angry," Kate told People. "I was out and it was done before it even started." For now, Kate's reality TV chapter seems to have officially closed. A comeback, at this point, is about as likely as "Kate Plus 8" getting rebooted. In other words, it's simply not happening.

With her TV gigs dried up, Kate reportedly assumed producers would be lining up at her door. And well, they just weren't. "Kate thought she'd get a job immediately or be offered to take her reality show to another network but she's getting a wakeup call. She is working on her website and trying to come up with things to do but she's miserable," an insider told Hollywood Life, adding that she had an offer for a small gig, but it didn't lead to anything substantial either. "Kate is still firming up the details on 'The Talk' but that wouldn't pay much anyway," the source added. "She would only host it for a week but then what?"

Kate did get a brief moment of glory (if you can even call it that) as a contestant on Season 10 of "Dancing With the Stars," but, much like her cha-cha moves, her shot at winning didn't land. Critics weren't kind, and neither were the judges, leaving Kate to openly complain about the whole experience. "I was trying to hold back horrible emotions ... probably not on live TV should I be standing there crying in front of the judges," she told Entertainment Tonight (via Parade). "It's getting a little difficult. I'm depressed, sort of."

After reality TV left her behind, Kate Gosselin lost so much of her money and had to trade red carpets for scrubs, reportedly returning to work as a nurse — the same job she held before "Jon and Kate Plus 8" made her famous. She reportedly even secured a nursing license in North Carolina, but the adjustment wasn't exactly seamless. "Returning to nursing isn't easy for Kate because of her fame. It really went to her head," an insider dished to InTouch. "She hadn't worked as a nurse since she began filming the show 15 years ago! But she has to do what she has to do."

Even with a steady job, it seems Kate struggled to stay afloat. Living paycheck to paycheck, she resorted to borrowing $100,000 from her children's trust fund — something she admitted in court documents obtained by The U.S. Sun. "I will have to keep borrowing from it to survive," Kate confessed, although she did claim that the money would also be used to "meet her and the children's expenses."

Of course, this revelation did not sit well with her ex-husband, Jon, who didn't mince his words. "It's disgusting and it's morally wrong," he told the outlet. "Parents are not supposed to withdraw any money from these accounts without permission and without drawing up paperwork that they will pay it back — but she has produced no paperwork and no payments have been made. ... You can't just live off your kids' money."

After relocating to North Carolina following the collapse of her TV career, Kate Gosselin has reportedly retreated from the world. According to OK!, she's stopped trying to "date or socialize with friends" and hasn't had much luck reviving her nursing career either. "Even her nursing job that paid her a fraction of what she made on Kate Plus 8 didn't pan out," they added. "She's hurting for money and facing the very real possibility of having to sell her house in North Carolina."

Another insider painted a similarly bleak picture. Since her youngest kids left for college, Kate has been living solo, with little social interaction. "Kate went from being one of the country's most popular reality stars, even appearing on 'Dancing With the Stars,' to living a quiet life in North Carolina with hardly any friends and only some of her kids to talk to," they told InTouch. "It's very sad." And sure, she's occasionally spotted hanging out with someone, but don't expect much more. "Kate was visiting a friend in a park, but that's very rare," they continued. "Her life is nothing like it once was. She made a lot of money, she was on the cover of magazines, doing talk show appearances. She had business opportunities, and now that's all gone."

Perhaps one of the most unsettling things in Kate Gosselin's post-fame life is her estrangement from her son, Collin, who hasn't held back on airing some very disturbing claims. In addition to putting him in an institution, Collin revealed that Kate went to disturbing lengths to isolate him from the rest of the family. "My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement," he explained to The U.S. Sun. "She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside. It was like a containment room, literally, and it had a mattress on the floor and that's how I lived." He also claimed she zip-tied him and regularly lashed out at him. "My mother at many, many times, and most of the time became physically aggressive, verbally, very abusive with the things she would say," he said.

Kate hasn't directly responded to Collin's allegations, but she has previously brushed them off by suggesting her son had a "distorted perception of reality" and needed more intervention than the rest of the kids. Meanwhile, her lawyer, Richard Puelo, jumped to her defense, insisting that whatever Kate did, it wasn't out of cruelty. "She never wants to comment because she always knows that this gets taken out of context," he told Fox News Digital. "Whatever took place, the ones that are truthful are the ones that took place ... She has no comment because it's not going to change the past. And I don't believe she intentionally harmed any of her children in any way, shape, or form."

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.