Collin Gosselin Says Kate Pulled Him From a Kate Plus 8 Escape-Room Shoot After He Compared It to the Locked Rooms at Home

Gossip

By January Nelson

Updated 3 minutes ago, October 21, 2026

Collin Gosselin, 22, says a joke about being locked in his room at home ended with his mother pulling him from a Kate Plus 8 escape-room shoot during a family trip to Florida. In an audio reading presented as a passage from his memoir, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, he recalls telling his siblings that he should be good at escaping because it was like his room at home.

In the reading, he describes the moment his words landed: “I said something like, oh, I should be good at this. This is like my room at home. What? Mom snapped her head around and looked at me. That’s not funny. As soon as it was out of my mouth, my mom’s face turned red. Not annoying red, but like emergency shutdown. You’re done. Come with me. She pinched my elbow and pulled me by the arm back to the entrance. How stupid of me to say something that was unfortunately for her completely true. I didn’t even know it was something I wasn’t supposed to say. To me, this just made sense. I spent most of my time in locked rooms. Of course, I thought what I would be good at escaping one.”

He says Kate pinched his elbow, pulled him toward the entrance and had him taken back to the house while his siblings filmed the challenge without him.

Related Articles

The former Jon & Kate Plus 8 child star alleges in his memoir that Kate confined him to a basement room that even the show’s crew wasn’t allowed to enter: “Most days, I spent about 70 percent of my time locked in that room.” He presents the escape-room incident as part of a pattern of removing him when editing out his words wouldn’t be enough, and urges viewers to watch for his absence. He’s also described himself as the difficult child “because I was the only one that pushed back against filming.”

The escape-room challenge aired in the December 8, 2015, season 4 premiere, “School’s Out!” A recap published that night describes the family solving the room’s bomb code with 2 seconds remaining.

Kate called Collin’s broader account “complete fabrications” in July 2023, before the memoir was published. In more recent TikTok comments responding to the book, she wrote, “I know rational logical ppl or anyone who has dealt with mental illness understands what’s going on here.” Neither response specifically addressed the escape-room allegation.

Thanks for reading Thought Catalog. Join us on Facebook, or keep reading on our website.