KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN (24 page)

BOOK: KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN
5.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

 

SAND SCULPTURE:

Now kids can craft a permanent sand sculpture just by using sand, water and cornstarch.

 

MAKING ICE CREAM IN A BAGGIE:

Put in a sandwich-size Zip[Loc bag and “zip” closed: 1 tablespoon sugar ½ cup milk or half & half ¼ teaspoon vanilla.

Put in a gallon-size Zip-Loc ba
g and zip closed: 2 t. rock salt (baking aisle in grocery) the filled and zipped sandwich bag from above ice cubes to fill bag about ¾ full. Shake and roll filled bag over and over until frozen (about 15-20 min.) YUMMY!!

 

HOLD A BOAT RACE

You will need:

Large paper flag for each boat (design your own or use some of our scrapbook paper)

Popsicle stick

Sticky tape

Plastic tray (the sort pre-packaged vegetables come in)

Stick your flag to the popsicle stick with tape. Use lots of tape to make the stick stand upright in the centre of your boat. To sail pop into a paddling pool and blow into the sail!

 

All Kate had to do was show up, take the gum out of her mouth, and learn how to make ice cream in a baggie and a little boat out of a plastic tray and a popsicle stick.

Kate Gosselin is SUPER SMART!

 

 

PHILADELPHIA

 

Kate was keeping the money train rolling down the tracks – without Jon as part of the show – by filming episodes of
Kate Plus 8
. To further speak to the subject of scripted or fake filming, this piece was filed by NBC TV in Philadelphia on Monday, January 3, 2011. Read it and decide for yourself if this was a family out for a leisurely day simply being followed around by a camera crew or if it was, perhaps, something else entirely.

 

Philly reporter: Kate ‘miserable’ and ‘distant’ on shoot

 

A Philadelphia entertainment reporter gave more details of Kate and the kids’ working vacation to Philadelphia that he observed in December (just before they took off for an even bigger business trip to Australia).

The first stop of the trip was Starbucks.

Confidentiality agreements were required wherever they went.

The nanny tended to the children at lunch at Waterworks and Kate was “off to the side.”

Steve (Neild, the bodyguard) tried to block the photos and the reporter just shot around him.

Then finally Steve said fine.

Collin fell on the Rocky steps and Kate didn’t even acknowledge him.

The kids looked happy but Kate appeared “miserable” and “distant.”

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/shows/nonstop/EXCLUSIVE_Kate_Gosselin_and_the_Kids in_Philly_Philadelphia-112814709.html

 

Also, an eyewitness to the Philadelphia filming had this to say:

 

“Oh, I was at the Phila Art Museum when the kids had to run and then re-run up the steps the right way. Kate was on her phone. The kids were falling because the steps are very wide. She had them repeat and redo scenes where she talked to the kids. The camera was behind her and
she was mouthing the words so the kids would remember their lines.”

 

Isn’t this the way all kids just live their real lives?

 

 

SAD, SAD, SAD, SAD, SA
D

 

On the final episode of
Kate Plus Ei8ht
, the kids were put on the interview couch to speak their minds. Unfortunately, they were forced to speak Kate’s mind instead.

Interviewer Question to Alexis and Joel: The show is ending. How do you guys feel about that?

Alexis and Joel: “Sad.” “Sad” (as they’re laughing). “We’re sad.”

Hannah and Collin also
said they’re “sad.”

Mady said she was sad as she was smiling. She had to make a frowny face and point to it to try to convince us that she really was sad.

 

 

FEAR FACTOR

 

For years, Kate used fear as a weapon to get her children to perform on cue in front of the cameras. In later years of the show, Kate told her kids, even her then 6-year-olds, that if they didn’t say what they were told to say on the interview couch, they would lose their TV show, which would mean they would have to move back into a tiny house with one bathroom, and they would be taken out of their private school and sent to public school where they would never see their friends again. Listen to what Kate said on the Wendy Williams show in September of 2011:

 

Williams: “How are the kids reacting to the cancellation of the show?”

 

Kate: “They, sigh, you know, for them, it’s um, we’re gonna miss the crew, but what about the trips? And, um, surprisingly, when I told them, it, it, moments later, it was, are, are we gonna, are we gonna be able to afford to stay in our house and go to our school? And I was like, I wasn’t prepared for that, I mean, how sweet of them? I wasn’t prepared for them and I just told them I’ll work my fingers to the bone to continue what they deserve which is the best.”

 

Young children would not know to worry about things such as being able to afford to stay in their house and having to leave their school if someone had not put those thoughts into their heads. Who do you suppose would be cruel enough to put those fears into a 6-year-old child?

 

 

 

THE GOSSELIN GIVE-BACK?

 

“God had just taught me something big.

He proved to me that I would never be able to out-give Him.”

– Kate Gosselin

 

 

Kate Gosselin and Discovery/TLC made a big show out of Kate Gosselin “giving back” at least twice in the early shows. They filmed a trip to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, for Kate to “give back” to children with pediatric cancer, and they created a yard sale episode where Kate sold their belongings to raise money for pediatric cancer research. The actual name of the St. Jude episode was “Giving Back.”

Those episodes were, no doubt, intended to lead viewers and the public into believing that Kate Gosselin is a charitable woman who cares about people, children in particular, who are less fortunate than herself. But there is an ugly truth you may not know about Kate’s charitable side.

By 2009, Kate Gosselin had already made several million dollars from a combination of earnings from her television show, her Christian books, speaking engagements, and endorsement deals, plus whatever other money-making ventures she had going on that we don’t know about. There is no disputing the fact that Kate was very well off financially.

In addition, all, or most of, the clothing that Kate and her children wore on the show was given to them, either by sponsors of the show or from individual endorsement deals put together by Kate or her manager. The Gymboree, GAP, Peace Love World, etc., clothing you saw the kids wearing was all free.

Kate had also received an enormous outpouring of support, both financially and in the form of clothing for her children, from her community and from people all across the country in the early days – when she was supposedly struggling to make ends meet for her family. So, it would be reasonable to think that this self-proclaimed Christian woman who had been on the receiving end of such generosity from others would be eager to “give back,” even just a little bit, to show how much she appreciated all she had been given. You would be wrong.

In 2009, I watched as UPS employees loaded cases and cases of free Nestle Juicy Juice into Kate’s car. I learned by reading her contracts and endorsement deals that Nestle had donated a “lifetime supply of Juicy Juice” to Kate and the kids. As a millionaire who could afford to buy Juicy Juice, it would have been nice to see Kate donate at least some of that juice to the local food bank, or have Nestle send it directly there in her kids’ names.

Also in 2009, when it was time for Kate to clean out some of the kid’s clothing that she could no longer use, I followed her, several times, to a consignment shop in Shillington, PA, where she carried in piles of children’s clothing, to RESELL. Kate Gosselin, a millionaire, was selling clothes she didn’t even pay for in the first place to those truly in need. There is no disputing this because I watched her and photographed her doing this, and the paparazzi photographed her doing this. I also spoke to the consignment shop owner after Kate had left. This particular shop is 3 miles from my house, and I had been there many times before.

The worst part of this story is that, on the way to that consignment shop from her house, Kate had to drive by – in her $69,000 Toyota Land Cruiser – a giant Goodwill Industries distribution center and retail store, where she could have donated the items and gotten a tax write off in the process…and saved a lot of time if she was in a hurry. Kate was a millionaire getting everything for free, and she was reselling her children’s free clothing, rather than donating it to the needy.

That was nothing new for Kate, though. As far back as when the sextuplets were babies, Kate was begging for help and handouts of any kind. It would have been easier and more honest if she had just come right out and told her community up front that what she was really looking for was cold, hard cash. Even then, Kate was accepting bag after bag of gently used clothing at her house in Wyomissing, only to then take it all directly to the local consignment shop where she would turn it into cash. Kate only wanted, and felt she deserved, brand new designer clothes for her brood. To that end, she was contacting stores every day soliciting freebies.

Kate’s aversion to donating is not confined to clothing alone. This is a partial excerpt from my reporting for
U
S
Weekly
:

 

Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting

December 2009

Kate cleaned out many of the kid’s old toys that they don’t use anymore and filled three giant trash cans and made a pile next to them with some things that wouldn’t fit in cans. There was a full-size electric keyboard sticking out of one of the trash cans with a pile of small, plastic chairs broken up and pushed all around it. On the ground next to the cans was a Buzz Lightyear stationary bicycle and a large, plush hobby horse on springs that a child can ride on and bounce up and down. The toys outside the trash can looked in very clean/new condition and I’m wondering why they were thrown away rather than being given or sold to a thrift store or charity.

Other books

Mindworlds by Phyllis Gotlieb
The Girl in the City by Harris, Philip
Little Suns by Zakes Mda