Collin Gosselin will tell the story of his childhood in the world of reality television in a new memoir.
Grand Central will publish Gosselin’s In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood in the fall. In the book, the press says, Gosselin “breaks his silence to share the shocking story hidden behind the facade of a picture-perfect family.”
Gosselin is one of the eight children of Jon and Kate Gosselin; the family was the subject of the reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8, which ran from 2007 to 2017. The series chronicled the parents’ hectic lives taking care of their kids, a pair of twins and a group of sextuplets. Following the 2009 divorce of Jon and Kate Gosselin, the series changed its name to Kate Plus 8.
Grand Central says that Collin Gosselin’s book “is the first account of a secret childhood lived in the gaps between the frames….This is a reckoning with the dark side of fame: the systems, the entourage, and the institutions that allowed one boy to be erased. This is the never before told story of how he escaped and found his way back from the dark.”
Collin Gosselin announced the book on Instagram, writing, “Growing up, millions of people watched my life on television. People felt like they knew me. They knew my family. They watched me grow up. But there was so much they never saw….Writing this book forced me to revisit some of the hardest moments of my life, but it also gave me something I’ve been searching for for a long time: my voice. This isn’t the story people think they know. It’s the story I’ve lived.”
In the Shadow of Eight is scheduled for publication on Oct. 13.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
