This week a momentous shift took place in tabloid America. Kate Gosselin, who has always teetered between loathsome and annoyingly familiar, wormed her way into the hearts of the viewing public. Gosselin was the maternal half of the TLC reality show about life with sextuplets and twins—Jon and Kate Plus 8—until the tabloids, with their infinite reach, reported that Jon was possibly sleeping with a third-grade teacher. Then on the Today show Monday, Kate put the nail in the cheating bastard’s coffin. Jon, she reported, withdrew $230,000 out of the $231,000 in their joint bank account. “I have a stack of bills to pay in my purse,” she agonized. She used that detail—in my purse—to great effect, for what American woman these days does not walk around hiding a stack of unpaid bills in her purse?
View DoubleX's slideshow of the spectacular fall of Jon Gosselin.
As their marriage falls apart, Jon was probably destined to lose the public relations battle. In celebrity divorce cases, as in regular divorce, we are still conditioned to view the man as holding all the cards. If the woman behaves in a reckless, crazy manner—think Denise Richards, Christie Brinkley, or Tricia Walsh of You Tube rant fame—we assume it’s to make up for her frustration and helplessness. But in this case the gender stereotypes are blinding us to the obvious reality. In this miserable duo, Jon is what divorce attorneys would call the “out” spouse—the one with no money or power who might end up on the street. And like many out spouses, he is looking out for the interests of the kids. For those reasons he is actually the one who deserves our sympathy.
Let’s consider his withdrawal of that money. The divorce attorneys I surveyed agreed that, in general, it is not a good idea to raid an account after you’ve agreed in arbitration that you won’t. And Kate did her best to portray this as a pattern of irresponsible behavior, alluding on the Today show to Jon’s “erratic purchases.” But there is one exception wherein the behavior is perfectly rational. “If you are the ‘out’ spouse who does not make money and has no means of support, then absolutely you can withdraw it,” says Gary Silverman, a prominent Nevada divorce attorney who is representing Gov. Jon Gibbons, undergoing his own tawdry divorce. “You have to protect yourself from the other half who wants to squeeze you out.” Usually that’s the wife but “sometimes the person in the role of the wife is not actually the wife,” says Silverman. In other words, Jon is, for arbitration purposes, the wife.
On the Today show, Kate claimed that she “can’t pay the bills,” needs money to buy the kids food, and is afraid for the roof over their heads. “I did the show to provide them with a better life,” she said. “Never did I think I’d be back in the same position, worried about how to provide for them.” She dabbed her eyes after she said this. But the couple has earned $50,000 to $75,000 an episode for a show that went into five seasons, not to mention the freebies, which surely include some leftover granola bars and Gap T-shirts. Early this year Kate relentlessly toured the country for her sticky-sweet, quasi-spiritual parenting books. Last week, TLC announced that they would rebrand the show Kate Plus 8, leaving Jon, yes, out on the street and Kate with a fat wallet.
Hanna Rosin Double X co- editor, reporter, prefer my friends live.
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Jon Hamm spent most of the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted last night shirtless.
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Comments
Kate Does Not Deserve Our Pity
By: tugar | Thu, 10/22/2009 - 16:08
I agree, Kate Gosselin does not deserve anyone's pity. She wanted bigger and better and she got it all, but just a little too quickly to really mean anything. Her new million dollar home which she may soon be not able to afford, her kids most of all, going thru a total nightmare having to grow up way too fast seeing dad and his ladies over as babysitters, and Kate, (who knows)! But whatever is taking place in their private lives, its all being put out in front of the world everyday, and this is not good for any family. Kate and Jon are both (mega liars), so who's doing what wrong is anybody's guess. But I really want to see the show with the kids canceled immediately. No one should be making a living off of their children's existence.
I've know families with far more kids, with less living space and no one gave them a dime to support them all. But somehow, these people have enjoyed more freebeez, trips, money than anybody ever should have simply because they have kids. Now the parents are acting like "Jerry Springer" trailer people, and TLC is still trying to ram this God Awful show down our throats with the mother only, saying it is a good and wholesome, (single mom family type of a show)! SORRY TO TELL YA TLC, BUT THERE'S A GREAT MANY OF US THAT ARE "SINGLE MOMS", and none of us have TV Reality shows to help pay our bills, no matter how many kids we have, and many of us can beat Kate Gosselin by miles on that count!
JUST END THE SHOWS WITH KATE AND THE KIDS..... GIVE HER THE "talk show" that I heard she might be doing, but any show with her kids, is just plain exploitation, and I for one hope Jon is successful in putting a stop to any of that in the future!
It seems staged to me
By: jetrain73 | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 10:11
Thankfully I never got caught up watching this show or any other reality TV show and most of what I know about it is from articles like this and tabloid headlines. But it seems to me that their ratings probably tripled or quadrupled this season with the breakup, divorce, and tabloid press photographing them with other people.
I suspect they were already heading toward a divorce privately and the network encouraged them to have a very public divorce instead on camera to increase their ratings. And it worked. And now maybe Jon is annoyed that his cut isn't much at all so that's why he's now complaining about the show filming his kids during the divorce.
Of course there could be a huge ratings winner when Jon and Kate get back together in a season or two. I'm sure that's in the script.
You don't have to pick a "good guy"
By: MrJM | Wed, 10/14/2009 - 21:55
They're both self-absorbed a-holes.
-- MrJM
Neither Does Jon!!
By: Lysandramarie | Tue, 10/13/2009 - 13:51
Maybe Kate doesn't deserve "pity" but I have a very heard time seeing Jon as the wronged party here. He is the spouse who openly let photographers document his dating life very very soon after moving out of the home he shared with his wife and children. He only seems to have changed his mind about the kids being filmed after he realized he's going to have a hard time living the celebrity lifestyle that he was chasing.
So when he got kicked off the show and truly didn't know where his next paycheck would come from, he went on TV complaining that it's not good for his kids. Then he freaked and took money out of the bank. Look, I know Kate won't have to pick up a waitressing job to feed her kids, and TLC won't let the electric company turn off the lights, but the way he's acted is still gross.
Can't Do It
By: JC | Mon, 10/12/2009 - 13:48
I watched the show a few times...and every time I looked at Jon I saw someone who should have not gotten married. And who knew it. And who acted like it everytime a problem arose!
Maybe because he reminds me of my ex husband who refused to take any responsibility for anything (his job, his bills, his family) and then when MADE to do those things said I was an emasculating nag.
Well, emasculating nags unite. We get things taken care of. Regardless of whether or not he loves the children's mother, he should be living close to his kids, and participating daily in their lives. Instead, he'd rather chase tail and fast money, rather than work on a long term relationship with his kids.
"Where is Camera Daddy?" "Where is Boom Mike Daddy?"
By: MF | Sun, 10/11/2009 - 19:50
I watched the show a few times, and I thought the best part was watching the little kids interact with the crew. It's such a no-no for "reality" TV, but of course, they didn't know or care. The one with the glasses seemed especially likely to talk to the cameramen. Sometimes I wonder if it'd be bad for them to stop being filmed because they'd lose out on these people who've become a fixture in their lives. I have a feeling that some of those crew people pay more attention to the kids than their own parents do.
I bet it's hard for the crew not to get attached to the kids. They must really be bummed out about all this crap swirling around them.
Income Taxes
By: Was a fan | Sun, 10/11/2009 - 12:46
I had been a fan since the 1st show and take Jon’s side in this mess.
ButI have a question that I would like to ask. I haven't seen this mentioned on anywhere in print.
"Have they paid income taxes on all these “freebies”?
Just wondering….
Kate is NOT at fault
By: Nancy C | Sun, 10/11/2009 - 10:51
Back when this was a sweet little show with a neurotic mom and a DIY dad, the paps did not flock and no one went alone to reality shows. Then Jon began dating 20 year olds, even leaving Kate on her birthday to spend time in Utah with the teacher. He was then photographed drunk and with other women and it came to pass that he was devolving into a nutjob after having digested $22,000 worth of pop psychology.
Jon started the rumor about Kate and the bodyguard, and about her moving here to Maryland to deflect his guilt. He went to France, the Hamptons, diddling and fiddling his way along. He began talking to the Paps, becoming a "source" and treating them as his very own "dear diary", tipping them off even to the place and time the children caught the bus in the morning for school.
Kate kept working. She complained, but she never did anything close to going on national television and saying she "despised" her former mate nor did she profess a love greater than that in the marriage to the television audience as Jon did about little Hailey.
Jon hired a shifty lawyer, took bad advice, and began doing appearances at nightclubs, bars, and most recently on trauma driven drivel shows like ET and The Insider. All along spewing half truths - witness the reading of only part of Kate's birthday e-mail to inflame the situation.
Now he has tapped into the bank accounts for more than $230,000 without so much as a "how are you". I am certain once a forensic accountant reviews all this mess there will be some fault on each side, but the malicious doings are all Jon's.
Of course the kids are suffering from all of this, but Jon started this ball rolling, not Kate. Jon's a lost soul. Does anyone know where Lassie is, cause this guy could use a rescue.
If I had that many kids I
By: Bunnyhop234 | Sat, 10/10/2009 - 15:14
If I had that many kids I would do the show too! Everyone acts like it's the worst thing in the world for them. But, without that show the family would have ben desperately poor. I grew up poor, and believe me, it sucks! People seem to forget that money does matter and it is important. I think 90% of us would agree to do a show like that if we were getting that kind of dough.
You have GOT to be kidding
By: atyler | Sat, 10/10/2009 - 15:07
I actually thought that this article was a spoof, a joke. There was NO WAY anybody could really believe that Jon was the wronged party, could they? I mean, seriously? The fact that the author believes this makes me doubt every other opinion she has. Stop making excuses for poor, selfish, philandering, sickening behavior. If Jon couldn't stand up for himself all these years, that's his fault, and it does not give him a free pass now. Honestly.