Jon Gosselin is once again speaking out about his tumultuous divorce from his ex-wife Kate Gosselin.
As you know, the Jon and Kate Plus 8 stars had quite the messy breakup back in 2009 — and the mess has been pretty consistent ever since. But now that the kids are old enough, the battle is basically over. The teens are making their own choices. With things finally coming to a close, the patriarch is hopeful everything will start to change for the family.
Related: Jon Had ‘Difficult’ Time Hearing Mady Discuss Childhood Harassment
While speaking with The US Sun over the weekend, he revealed more deets about what life was like for himself and their 8 kids — sextuplets Alexis, Collin, Joel, Hannah, Leah, and Aaden, as well as twins Mady and Cara — in their younger days:
“Before, the kids living with Kate were under her thumb but now they are adults and going off to college or the military or whatever, I don’t have as much fear about reaching out to them.”
The 46-year-old went on to say his kids went along with it because they never wanted to upset their mom:
“There was so much angst between Kate and I and my kids are pleasers, they wanted to please their mom. I always wanted to talk to all of my kids but I didn’t want to put them in an awkward position because Kate didn’t want them talking to me.”
As you’ll recall, two of the sextuplets — Collin and Hannah — chose to live with Jon while the other siblings stayed with Kate. It caused a lot of estrangement between them and the other siblings, who Collin confessed he hadn’t spoke to in five or six years late last year.
But that wasn’t Jon’s fault, he says. He swears he’s not guilty of “alienation” on his end — but slammed Kate for the disturbing tactic:
“I always wanted to talk to all of my kids but I didn’t want to put them in an awkward position because Kate didn’t want them talking to me. I didn’t do parental alienation on my side but she definitely did on her side, but now they are adults they may not be influenced as much by her, and management and all those things”
Yeesh…
The father of eight is hopeful for the future, though. He hopes now that all of the kids are over 18 and the legal battles are finally done, their family “will start to heal”:
“My door has always been open to them and I hope now they are adults they may want to reach out.”
We guess it’s up to the kids now — sorry, to the young adults! Hopefully this can be a turning point for the family to put all of the drama behind them and start working out their differences for the better. What do U think is going to happen, Perezcious readers? Sound OFF (below).
[Image via Jon Gosselin/Instagram/TLC/YouTube]