Inside Jon Gosselin’s latest attempt to reconnect with his estranged kids
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Jon Gosselin, former star of the reality series Jon & Kate Plus 8, is once again trying to salvage the relationship with his children.
Jon, 47, revealed in November 2024 that he is engaged to cosmetologist Stephanie Lebo, 37, and plans to weave an attempt at reconnecting with his six estranged children into their wedding plans.
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“Yes, I will definitely do that. I will send an invite to all of them,” Jon shared in a Wednesday, December 4 interview per Ok Magazine. “You know, they are my kids. It would be nice for [Stephanie] to meet my other kids.”
Despite Jon planning to invite his other children, he revealed that he did not tell all of them about the engagement beforehand. He only broke the news to his daughter Hannah and his son Collin, the only two of his eight children with ex-wife Kate Gosselin (née Kreider) who talk to him and decided to live with him in 2022.
Jon separated with Kate in 2009, just two years after the series began airing on TLC in 2007. The couple first got married in 1999, and they had eight children together. They welcomed twin daughters Cara Nicole and Madelyn “Mady” Kate, 24, first, followed by the sextuplets in 2004: sons Aaden Jonathan, Collin Thomas, and Joel Kevin, and daughters Alexis Faith, Hannah Joy, and Leah Hope – all of whom are 20 years old now.
After Kate, 49, filed to divorce Jon following cheating allegations in 2009, the show’s title changed to simply Kate Plus 8, focusing on what it was like for her to raise the eight kids as a single mom. She received full custody at the time, but the two former lovers battled over the children, according to People Magazine.
As for his contact with Kate, the two will not be speaking anytime soon.
“Kate does what Kate does. Kate only cares about Kate,” he previously shared in a February 2024 interview with Entertainment Tonight. “It’s not a problem anymore, I guess. I don’t know. I really don’t know, because I don’t talk to her.”
