14 DAY TRIAL // One week ago, news broke that Jon Gosselin, Kate Gosselin’s ex-husband and one half of the now defunct hit TLC reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8, was planning on asking for custody of just one of his 8 children with Kate, following a late April incident that made him think she was mistreating them.
Said incident involved 11-year-old Hannah, one of the former couple’s twins. The report noted that Hannah had told her father she was afraid of going back home, which prompted a call to child services over “cruelty” claims.
Jon had been talking about getting custody from Kate for years, but this had convinced him that action could no longer be delayed, so he decided to seek it only in Hannah’s case, for the time being.
Hearing date set for June
InTouch is now reporting that Jon did deliver on his promise to file the papers asking for full custody of the teenager, because a hearing date has been set for June. However, the insider speaking with the mag is convinced that the court will make a decision before that date - and it might be in Jon’s favor.
Rumors of Kate’s strict parenting have been around for a very long time, surfacing at the same time as her and Jon’s show became the biggest reality program of the day. There was never any concrete proof to back them up, but that didn’t make them go away.
More details of this kind are now emerging online, with the report claiming a court date has been set. Apparently, just last week, Kate “disappeared” from home for 4 full days, and she didn’t even leave a number where the kids could contact her if something was up.
As it so happens, last week, Kate was photographed out on a date with her millionaire boyfriend, Jeff Prescott, so the implication here is that she went away with him.
“She left the kids with the nanny. Kate is supposed to give Jon first right of refusal to take care of the kids when she goes away and she didn’t,” the insider says. “The kids told Jon that they didn’t know where she went and had no way to reach her because she doesn’t give them her cell number. Kate thinks if she gives it to them, someone else will get a hold of it, and she doesn’t want random people calling.”
Jon means business this time
As noted above, Jon has spoken before about his plans to sue Kate for custody of the kids, but he never carried the plans through, for a variety of reasons. The most important were that he lacked the financial resources or the appropriate home to raise 8 children, 2 older twins and sextuplets.
This time, he means business: InTouch has a statement from his attorney, Kristen Doleva-Lecher, who says that “his priority is his children,” which could be seen as confirmation of the ongoing custody case.
Fans of the TLC show, which later became just Kate Plus 8 before it was canceled for good, know that Jon was essentially shut out by the network after the divorce, after speaking to media and expressing concern over the wellbeing of the children.
As he saw it, they were being exploited in front of the camera and had already shown signs of developmental issues that would probably take years to work through. Kate and TLC bosses disagreed, so he was fired and got limited time with the kids.
Admittedly, he’s finally trying to change that.