KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN (101 page)

KATE’S HARROWING EXPERIENCE

We had our one and only snowstorm of 2011 just before Halloween. To everyone else in Berks County, it was just another snowstorm. But to Kate Gosselin, it was a harrowing experience that she barely survived.

When Kate described the scene at her house to her Twitter followers, she made it sound like she and the kids were snowed in like Jack Nicholson and the Torrence family in the movie
The Shining
. It made for great drama to buy into if you were at home in another state.

Except that I was at my house, 10 minutes away from Kate’s house, reading her tweets and looking out my front window, and wondering just what the heck she could have been drinking at the time to be tweeting such nonsense. Everyone believed her tweets, though, because there was no reason not to.

It was an early snowstorm, with wet snow, so it stuck to tree branches and knocked down the weaker branches from the trees. It was nothing special for this part of the country. But to Kate Gosselin? Well, that’s quite a different story, as always. Kate’s situation is always unique, and always harder and more important than yours or mine. She always has it worse than everyone else.

I drove to Kate’s house three times during her “harrowing experience” to document what was actually going on during the day and night. I took many photographs of the roads leading to Kate’s house, of Kate’s plowed driveway, and of Kate’s completely plowed at all times roads, not only in front of her house, but all the way into town and to the highways.

The TOTAL accumulation of snow on Kate Gosselin’s property was 5.5 INCHES. Just under the 6 inches that was forecast for her area. I photographed myself standing in the snow in her front yard (on the other side of her fence, of course), and I photographed a measuring stick next to my boots in her front yard. I did this twice – at the height of the snow and her tweeting, and at 7 AM the next morning after the snow had stopped.

At 3 pm on Saturday, there were just under 1.5 inches of snow on Kate’s property. But here’s how Kate described the mild snowstorm on Twitter during that time:

Um instead of painting pumpkins today, we are shoveling our 6 inches of snow.. And counting. Not cool

And did I mention we lost power? Cold lunch and uh cereal for dinner?

Kate must have forgotten that she has a huge grill under her covered back porch right outside her basement doors, protected from the snowfall, that she could have used for cooking. But her situation started getting more desperate:

I’ve lost most of my driveway trees to the heavy snow. We are stuck bc of branches. 8+ inches of snow now.

Did you hear that? She said “8+ inches of snow” had fallen. At 4:00 in the afternoon. She said she lost most of her driveway trees. Neither was true.

Here’s the truth of the matter. There was actually about 2.5 to 3 inches of snow, maybe, around that time in the late afternoon. I was there at her house by then, and Kate’s driveway had already been plowed by her snow-removal company; a few very small branches were pushed off to the side all along the driveway. This was in stark contrast to the many, many houses I passed on the way to Kate’s that actually had sustained significant tree damage and whose homeowners were outside cleaning up the mess.

Kate said, “I’ve lost most of my driveway trees to the heavy snow.”

She, in fact, lost only one tree, up close to her front door. It split in half. The other 30 trees were in perfect condition, until the following week when she had them pruned way back to prevent any future snow damage like what had happened to the single damaged tree. “Most of my driveway trees” was one tree out of 30. A big fat lie.

Just then, one of Kate’s favorite tweeties threw a monkey-wrench into Kate’s plans to create this incredible drama around herself. She asked to see a picture of the damage.

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 Yes take pic, im trying 2 visualize all the damage done to the trees!

For those unfamiliar with Kate Gosselin, you should know that she takes, and posts to Twitter, pictures of anything and everything under the sun. Posting a picture of the damaged trees would have been a simple, no-brainerish thing for Kate to do, if she had wanted to. But a picture would have proven that Kate was lying. So…Kate waited a little while and then tweeted this excuse:

I cant it’s too upsetting. Trunks left along driveway.
Branches everywhere… I am so upset

She said there were trunks and branches EVERYWHERE! But she was too upset to take a picture? I took some pictures. Besides the one tree right up by her front door, the rest were fine. They had some thin, weak little branches neatly pruned off by the heavy snow, but otherwise, all were in good shape.

A tweetie threw another common sense question at Kate, the self-proclaimed “most organized person on the planet” who never hesitates to give the rest of the world advice on how to run a household:

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 You do have a generator don’t ya?

no :(

Kate lives in a giant house out in the country, with eight kids inside, with multiple refrigerators and freezers filled with food, and she doesn’t have a backup generator? I live almost in the city and I have a backup everything. Just in case.

Kate tweeted more updates:

Driveway is now plowed, branches pushed2the side&still no power/heat.Cereal &fruit salad 4 dinner.Kids ea have flashlight/playing in dark!

The house was completely dark, so I’ll say Kate was being honest about the power being out.

I’m literally sick abt my tree loss. Too expensive2replace trees&they were my favorite part of property!;( Worried abt cold temps overnight

Did she make that comment about her trees being too expensive to replace in order to get people to send money, or just to get sympathy because things are so incredibly difficult and sad for Kate? Who knows? Her track record of lying and embellishing and scheming and taking advantage of people is the justification for this question.

Kate finally posted a picture of the one seriously damaged tree to prove that she had lost “most” of her driveway trees. It was not surprising that she was this stupid. If the lazy paparazzo had been interested, he could have easily driven an hour to take the same photos I did to prove her wrong.

A tweetie, no doubt trying to lift Kate’s spirits, tweeted that things could be a lot worse; that at least “you are all together! :)” Kate responded in her usual upbeat, can-do way:

I know but feel helpless

This was at 7 pm. I drove home and went back out again, just to see what was going on around town. This was a normal snowy Saturday night in Berks County. The roads were plowed and fine. All of the restaurants near Kate’s house and her Target shopping center were open and bustling with crowds.

If Kate truly felt helpless, and was worried about her children being cold, or eating cold food, she could have SIMPLY driven her very large SUV down her plowed driveway, through her open front gate, and down her completely plowed road to any one of the many hotels in the area, including the Homewood Suites, where Kate used to stay when Jon would come to the house for his custody time. It was the same hotel where Tony and the
Dancing With The Stars
crew stayed, and it’s a stone’s throw from about 12 restaurants, one of which, The Texas Roadhouse, is in the same parking lot.

At the very same time of night that Kate was describing her harrowing experience being “snowed in,” my wife and kids were hosting a Halloween party at our house – 10 minutes from Kate’s house on Heffner Road – with many of the kids’ friends and parents there having a great time, so life was going on as usual. People were out and about.

This tweetie tried to make the clearly distraught and traumatized Kate feel better:

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 aww so sorry Kate, I know your disappointed, but it’s the material things u can replace LATER. As long as ur fam isn’t hurt.

I know that well but the trees gives usprivacy :)

Kate also tweeted about what was really important:

U hav NO idea what Id do4a HOT coffee! I’m freezing2the core(I’m always cold even in summer)!

Kate could have used her cell phone (you know, that device that is permanently attached to her hand) to call one of the 20 restaurants within 10 minutes of her house to order takeout. The roads were clear. And yes, she could have had coffee delivered, too.

Kate made sure to keep her tweeties apprised of everything her kids were up to during the storm:

Kids were playing haunted house in basement.Now playing a flashlight game ie lights click on as quick as poss aft Mady names what 2shine on

Thank God the twins were there to take care of and entertain the sextuplets while Kate complained and tweeted to strangers the entire time. One of her tweeties gave her some good information:

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8
“I just bought a portable batt pack, u charge it + can plug stuff ie: coffee maker,lamp,ph chargers if pwr

And to that, Kate Gosselin, “the most organized person on the planet,” said:

really? Were do I get such a miraculous invention?

Ummm, how about Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods or any other nearby store?

And now here is another of the many, many lies she told during this ordeal. It’s hilarious how
even her Twitter followers, most of whom are teenage girls, can figure out what to do, but Kate can’t.

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 use your grill to cook. Don’t you have a fireplace? Go to Wally world & get a couple heaters. Close off all rooms but one.

roads not plowed. Can’t go anywhere

And I repeat: The roads were perfectly clear and safe to drive on, even with kids in the SUV or BBB.

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 awfully quiet Kate how u holding up?

lack of caffeine is making me sluggish. Kids still going strong. Humming twinkle twinkle in stereo w flash light clicks 4 beat

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 theres always starbucks ! Our Target has one in the entrance ! :-)

snowed in

Going2charge my phone in car now…B back later..Don’t panic! We r fine :) (as fine as we can b w/o lights,heat,hot food&coffee that is lol)

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 How much snow did you guys get?

10-12 inches

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 -almost lost our trees and bushes 2,I went out several times during storms with baseball, knocking off snow!

I shook branches too… Couldn’t get to them fast enough. Branches broke on treed next to me as I furiously worked

Does anyone reading that tweet truly believe that Kate Gosselin went out in the snow and “furiously worked” shaking tree branches? Kate stole that idea from her tweetie, as she so often does. The only thing Kate “furiously worked” at during her snowstorm ordeal was tweeting:

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 Oh, okay, the older trees…all of them? From the weight of the snow?We had snowstorms twice last spring-

yes, lost at least half of each tree and one is now just a trunk :(

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 Hopefully there’s some insurance coverage that can help with (tree) replacement. You haven’t had them that long, have you?

the trees along driveway (lining the entire driveway) fell. They were planted when house was built-before us!

And still her incessant, desperate tweeting continued. Even her teenaged fans and otherwise unoccupied moms seemed surprised at how stupid and helpless she is:

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 u do not need the electric light for stove. You can light it with match. Boil water. Been there Kate tryin 2 help

I don’t have any matches—they scare me! But I would have tried a candle lighter thingee had I known! :)

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 I’m surprised u don’t have a backup generator. Has this ever happened before?

not this long

xxxxx @Kateplusmy8 See isn’t twitter really grand…here U go thru this ordeal & U have ur tweeties 2 stand w/ya…encourage ya!

YES! My phone is charging in car while I tweet on iPad using its 17%power remaining! I don’t feel alone w just a flashlight now!