“How is it Kate plus 8 when one of the kids doesn’t want to perform anymore?” — Collin Gosselin

Collin Gosselin said those words on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast, where he looked back at the childhood that aired as “Jon & Kate Plus 8.” He was one of the sextuplets America watched grow up, and at 22 he says the childhood on camera wasn’t the one he lived.

On the show he described the moment he worked up the nerve to tell his mother he didn’t want to film anymore. “I was very scared the first time I went to my mom,” he said. He wasn’t blunt about it because he was afraid of her, and he compared her to a drill sergeant running an operation that had gone on too long to interrupt.

That line has stayed with people because of what he says the show took in exchange. He talks about his privacy being traded for a paycheck from a network, and about the natural, healthy development of a child being sacrificed for money.

His telling lands the day his memoir arrives. The cover of “In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood,” out October 13, shows a childhood photo of Kate Gosselin covering his mouth. The audiobook is narrated by Collin himself.

During that same interview, he recounts being isolated after his parents divorced in 2009, locked in a basement room, bound with zip ties, and institutionalized four days before he turned 12. That day in the ambulance, he says, was the last time he saw his mother in person. He says a 2023 psychological evaluation turned up no mental-health diagnoses.

Kate Gosselin and her representatives have previously denied intentional harm or abuse, framing past actions as responses to his behavior. These remain Collin’s allegations, and they have not been adjudicated in court.