KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN (114 page)

Kate went on to talk about her “masterminding the meals” and “foraging for food.” She made it sound like she was trapped in the wilderness and forced to scrounge for seeds and berries to keep her family alive instead of, horrors, having them eat macaroni and cheese instead of pizza.

Kate’s meltdown over Mady touching a slice of pizza is even more bizarre considering that earlier in the trip Kate was laughing and having a jolly good time while she and the kids threw RV “raw sewage” on each other, with some of the kids even getting it in their mouths.

A TEARFUL GOODBYE

Kate’s “best friend,” Jamie, and her other longtime “friend” and babysitter, Ashley, were along on the trip to help watch the kids. Kate called them what the rest of us already knew they were…paid help. Kate made it clear that Ashley and Jamie were not doing the work they were being paid to do. She said, “I can’t do it all myself and I have asked for help, and I’ve gotten it. I’ve gotten help, but not the help to the degree that I was hoping I would get.” That’s Kate-speak meaning Jamie and Ashley were being paid to do everything, but Kate actually had to pitch in a little bit, and it was more than she could bear.

“I’m not happy and I shouldn’t be happy,” Kate continued. I have always had what we needed. I am masterminding for 15 people. I am not along as help. Naturally, I’m a little busy. The funny thing is we pull out 25 minutes late and it’s always my fault cause they’re in there watching a movie. I went in yesterday, they’re all in the air conditioning on the HDTV and I just went… not one adult came and asked
if they could…is there anything I can do? I mean, that’s not
paid help
in my opinion, I’m sorry. I feel very bad saying bad things about two of the people I like the most. I’m not trying to say it about them, I just, I don’t know what happened to them. I don’t know if this is like posh trip that they’re usually used to going on, I, I don’t know what it is.
We don’t go on posh trips.
I struggle from the beginning to the end. I get very little sleep.”

Kate blamed everyone else for the reason they pulled out late, but Ashley exposed what really happened. She said, “The two hours yesterday that she’s talking about that she was ‘getting ready,’ she was putting on her makeup and taking a shower, and we had all the kids over here. It’s just BS. It’s just a joke to me and if she really…if that’s what she thinks, I’m over it. It’s bullcrap. It’s such a joke. It’s enough. I’ve had it.” With tears in her eyes, Ashley said, “It just sucks because I’d die for these kids, but I just can’t spend one more minute with her. Please send me home.”

A voice off camera told her, “Yep. We’ll do it. We’ll start working on it.” Then, with the blurred images of the two RVs side by side in the background, these words appeared on the screen: “DURING A PRIVATE CONVERSATION, ASHLEY TOLD KATE THAT SHE WAS LEAVING.”

We next saw Ashley standing outside the RV with the kids, who were all crying and obviously distraught. Ashley said goodbye to them with these words: “Look at me. I will see you again. Alright? I love you with all my heart and don’t let anybody ever tell you differently.”

Her choice of words was very telling…and very sad. Over the years, Ashley has probably seen and heard Kate lie to the kids about all of the family members and friends who are no longer in their lives because of Kate’s horrible behavior. Ashley was, no doubt, worried that Kate would lie to them about
her
reasons for leaving, so she made sure to tell them not to believe
anyone
who might tell them she doesn’t love them. So because of Kate’s mean, disrespectful, selfish behavior on this trip, and probably due to an accumulation of mean, disrespectful, and selfish behavior over the years, the Gosselin children lost their beloved babysitter and friend.

Kate was completely perplexed about Ashley’s negative comments and her quitting. She said she had absolutely no idea what could have made Ashley want to leave. That right there sums up Kate Gosselin’s cluelessness or straight up lack of caring about how badly she treats others. Everyone in her life leaves her and she says has no idea why.

With the same stunning lack of awareness she has always displayed, Kate said, “The funny thing about Ashley is that we’ve never even had a small disagreement in our lives.” She also said, “I’ve never had a run-in with Ashley, ever, ’til this trip, cause she has always said to me, ‘I used to think that you were, ya know, mean and yelling at me when you were stressed, but then I realized you were just yelling cause you were stressed’.”

Kate contradicted herself in one sentence. First she said that she and Ashley had never had a small disagreement in their lives, but then she quoted Ashley as saying that Kate was mean and yelled at her. Ashley said she had put up with Kate treating her badly and with terrible disrespect, for five years.

So how could Kate stand before the TLC viewing audience and tell such a blatant lie? Either she is too stupid to realize that she contradicted herself, or her mind is so warped and self-absorbed that she is unaware of how badly she treated Ashley. In the five years that Ashley cared for the eight Gosselin children, Kate was plenty mean and disrespectful to her. Given how things played out on the RV trip, it is logical to think that Ashley only put up with the earlier abuse and didn’t speak up to defend herself or fight back for the sake of the children. But everyone has a breaking point. For Ashley, Kate’s behavior on the RV trip pushed her over the edge.

At the end of the episode, Kate wrapped up the situation and tied it with a big bow of self-pity, saying, “People leave my life and I keep on going. Pretty much everyone leaves me eventually, and, most people can’t take it, but I have to take it. I can’t leave so, I wouldn’t leave if I could.”

She also said, “This has been the greatest organizational challenge of my life, and other than the exhaustion, the fact that my back hurts, my kids are screaming, my babysitter quit and all that, I actually still strangely enjoy the organization factor. I don’t know why.” What Kate doesn’t understand is that her obsession with organization is precisely why things go so badly so often. She has shown herself to be incapable of being flexible, so when something doesn’t go exactly as planned, she lashes out at those around her and makes things worse.

In the show’s finale, Kate, Steve, Jamie and Ashley each sat down separately to answer some final questions about the RV trip. When asked about Ashley leaving, Kate said this: “I think she was very angry with me, but quite honestly I think it was a little over dramatic. It’s a little dramatic – I thought.” “Jamie and I hashed it out. Steve and I hashed it out. Ashley and I hashed it out, and everybody’s fine.”

But when Ashley was asked if she and Kate had spoken, Ashley said, “We have, um, a few times. Nothing deep. Small talk. Nothing really, um, to, to fix it.”

Jamie said: “You can blame it on stress; you can blame that you treat people badly because of stress, but it’s no excuse to treat the people that love you the most and are closest to you, so poorly, because we’re the ones that support you and love you.”

That doesn’t sound like much was hashed out at all.

THE BLAME GAME

The RV episodes were painful to watch. There was constant complaining and whining, and people acting spoiled and unappreciative of everything they were seeing and doing, and everything they have. The ugly moments I have described are just the tip of the iceberg of terrible behavior that took place on that trip and were captured on film forever. You need to watch the episodes for yourselves to see all the disturbing things that occurred.

Kate had heavily promoted these episodes on Twitter, and she answered questions from her fans on Twitter while watching the RV episodes “together” with them. In reading her tweets, she just doesn’t see that anything she does is wrong, or she sees it and doesn’t care. Here is a tweet, which is also a lie, from Kate:

Ashley left without telling me :( that’s why I’m not there…

According to TLC, in capital letters across our television screens, Ashley told Kate in private that she was leaving. In her continued tweeting, Kate bad-mouthed and blamed Ashley for what transpired:

underminded, like I said! And made kids cry but u won’t see that!  :(

not sure! This really perplexed me! I’ve known and loved Ashley for a LONG time! Not sure what the real issue was?!?

It was another rough one…bad attitudes got the best of some… Watch next week… For more drama… And some fun too, I hope!

Watching this, yes it looks harsh.. But you’re only seeing parts of all of it..

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 Is everything okay between u & Ashley?

no matter what,I love her despite it all.Shes family2me&she will
[email protected]
hav no doubt&either does Carla,her mom,my friend!

Kate’s tweeting of blatant untruths caused Ashley to finally break her silence and check in on a Gosselin blog –
realitytvkids.com
– to set the record straight.

Hi everyone- as THE Ashley that you all are talking about I just have to say when I stumbled across this overview of the episode I was DYING laughing because the admin has what happen down pat.
Obviously there a lot more arguments and bad behavior that they didn’t show
but I truly enjoyed reading this. I appreciate the kind words as I have struggled with leaving the kids ever since it happened . . . I would ask that everyone continue to pray for the family as we can see they need it.

– Ashley Dawn Turner

During her Twitter party, Kate also tried to justify her horrible behavior on the rafting trip when EVERYONE else was having a great time splashing in the water.

I had camped for so long and had been filthy for so long, I just couldn’t get wet that day! No siree!

There were eleven or so other people on this trip, not counting the film crew, who had also “camped” for “so long.” None of them whined and complained and acted so immature – not even young children. Why was it that everyone else could have a great time except for Kate? Then because nothing is ever her fault, Kate went off on the river raft guide:

Omg this guy sent me directly over the edge! I was rude to him and he underminded my parental authority often.. UGH!

“This guy,” the river raft guide, couldn’t have been better mannered or more even-tempered. He sent Kate over the edge because he may have been the first person on the trip to not be totally intimidated, controlled and directed by Kate, and she had no idea how to react to him. (Petty Author’s Note: This was the second tweet in which Kate wrote the word “underminded” instead of “undermined.” This wouldn’t matter at all if she didn’t hold herself up as the perfect speller and grammarian and correct others when they are wrong.) Kate tweeted more about the drama of the trip:

I felt ganged up upon by all of them and felt like I had the organizational job of 1,000 ppl!

Seriously the drama was not ME!

Then someone tweeted Kate that it sure looked like it was her, and Kate responded: