KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN (81 page)

At this point we were all wondering who if anyone was picking up the kids because eight kids can’t fit in the Land Cruiser safely and no nannies were there.

As it turns out, Kate had to call Judy to come to the bus stop to help her with the kids. I’m not sure why she didn’t just bring the Sprinter down and do it herself but Judy was at the bus stop in her white car when we pulled in. Kate pulled in front of her and they were having a nice conversation, and then Judy went in the back of her car and pulled out a tiny little baby and brought it over to Kate who jumped out of her car and took the baby from Judy and was making goofy faces etc. at it. It was cute. I’d never seen Kate appear happy when not in front of the TLC cameras. She looked genuinely happy now. I never saw any kind of friendly interaction between Kate and Judy. I’m guessing it’s because Kate called Judy at the last minute to help her out with the kids. She only worked from 3:30 to 4:30 and then went home.

When the bus arrived, Kate went over and escorted all the kids off and they went over and waited with Judy in between the two cars. Judy put the baby in the back of her car and loaded the twins in the back of her car while Kate rounded up the sextuplets and she and Judy got them all jammed into the Land Cruiser – somehow. Kate had them all gathered up and had to scold them a bit because they weren’t standing still like she told them too. She told them that five-year-olds should be able to listen better than they were doing. Kate told the kids that “Daddy will be at home when we get there!” She talked about Jon to them with a smile on her face. That was nice to see.

Judy was on one side and Kate on the other side of the Land Cruiser and they took fifteen minutes getting them all strapped in. I’m not sure how many seats Kate’s car has back there and it didn’t seem safe to have them all back in there no matter how short the drive is.

Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting

November 2009

The Gosselin family chef was at the house today preparing the meals for the week. She was there from 8 to 11:30. A few minutes after she left, Kate went to the garage and got her Land Cruiser and came flying out of the front gate trying to lose the paparazzi from the start. She went way over the speed limit along the winding country roads around her house and ran two stop signs along the way.

She bypassed her usual first stop at Dunkin Donuts and got on the highway and sped to the UPS store. She parked beneath the sign that reads No Parking Fire Lane, facing the wrong direction. I parked right behind her. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.

She came back outside to her car three separate times to get things. She even mumbled out loud “I left my brain at home today.”

While we waited outside for her to come out, various store owners and customers took the time to call us losers and told us to get lives.

When she finally came out, she sat in the car for about ten minutes reading some of her mail and talking on the phone.

Next stop was her bank branch in Shillington. Again, she sat in the car for fifteen minutes reading her mail while a pap stood right outside her window waiting to video her. She got out and the first question was “Kate, are you sad that the TLC show is almost over?” Kate had no response.

After the bank, Kate led us on a high speed chase on the highway and through town and we ended up at the Old Navy store in Wyomissing. She went inside for about fifteen minutes and bought some shirts for the girls and shirts and pants for the boys. She brought her bags out and put them in the car and then went next door to Toys R Us. I fed today’s question to Kate to the pap who was filming her. “Kate, do you think all of this could have been avoided if you’d just put a dog collar on Jon in the very beginning?” No reaction. I was hoping for a chuckle, after all, it was her comment from the TLC show tonight.

I went inside Toys R Us behind her and told the paps where she was so they could run in quickly and shoot her. She was in the boys department going up and down the isles looking for presents for the boys I overheard her say to an employee. I put
myself in the next isle on her route and I was holding a GI Joe doll and browsing when she came around the corner and nearly ran into me. She rolled her eyes and turned right around and went to the next isle where the pap was waiting to take her picture. At this point I headed to the front to checkout because I could see she was about to lose it. I could hear her yelling about the pap and several employees yelled at him to get out saying “that’s not necessary.” Kate told them about me too but I was already gone. Kate was now at the register next to mine and she was watching me angrily as I pretended to be a customer. I got some early Christmas shopping done. She didn’t want us to see what she bought. She put the store circular overtop of her cart to hide her gifts. Perhaps the boys read the tabloids at school and might find out what she bought them for Christmas. She got some cars and trucks and a monster that roared and growled. It activated while she was at the register and everyone laughed, including Kate. As Kate was pushing her cart to her car, being filmed and shot by the paps, a woman who saw her said “I love you Kate” and Kate turned to her and smiled. It should be noted that at all the stores she visited today, she made it a point to walk her shopping cart back to the store rather than just leave it in the lot like a lot of people do, even if it meant another round of questions and pictures.

Next we went to the Target shopping center but went next door to Bed Bath & Beyond instead. I had a 20% off coupon that I offered to her but she must not have seen or heard me and kept walking inside. I have a terrible invisibility complex after spending hours with Kate everyday. I went inside and watched her browsing the dinnerware section. Either she’s gearing up for a fancy party or she’s buying gifts. She spent $200 on a fancy china table setting and cloth napkins and tablecloth. She saw me watching her but didn’t seem to mind as I wasn’t taking her picture and I had a comforter in my hand holding my store coupon. She knew she didn’t have a chance of having me removed. As it turned out, Kate had her own BB&B 20% off coupon that she used on her purchase. She’s a thrifty shopper.

It was now almost 3 pm and she had to get back to the house to get the van to pickup the kids. We raced out of the shopping center and headed toward her house, when she made a very dangerous U Turn across four lanes and headed in the opposite direction. Three miles of aggressive driving later and we were at the Dunkin Donuts drive thru getting coffee. I waited for her at the exit and followed her the rest of the way back to the house. She unloaded all of the bags and took everything inside, then got the Sprinter van and headed to the bus stop to pick up the kids.

I had tipped off a pap to something she did last Monday when I followed her back from the bus stop. She thought she was alone as I came circling back by the house and she was stopped at the gate with the back doors to the big van open and she was struggling to lift these two giant trash cans into the back of the van while the kids were inside, saving her a long walk down and back up the driveway.

Today a pap was hiding across the street in the bushes, out of sight, when she got to the house. I stayed well behind to let him get his shots. Kate did the same thing and stopped to load up the cans. He told me that he scared her when he started shooting. He did video as well. I haven’t seen the shots online yet but if it’s what I saw last week, it will be great for your ‘Stars, they’re just like us’ page.

Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting

November 2009

After FedEx, it was on the highway for a chase to pick up her mail at the UPS store. Kate is so predictable that I can drive ahead of her and meet her at her destination. She really is a creature of habit as Jon once told me. She was parked illegally again, right under the sign that read ‘No Parking Fire Lane.’ Pap firing away with the questions as she walked to the car.

Some of the favorite questions of the day:

“Kate, did you ever consider trying yoga like Jon to smooth yourself out a little bit?”

Kate’s response – Vacant stare.

“Kate, can you comment on why you never make a comment on my videos?”

Kate’s response – Vacant stare.

Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting

April 2010

All the pap agencies got word
somehow
that both Jon and Kate would be together at the house today because there were as many here as during the summer at the height of the story. They didn’t get the shot they were hoping for though because Kate left the house early, at 8:45 am to go run errands, leaving Jon alone with the kids. No nannies. In fairness to Kate, it is Jon’s custody day so she didn’t need to be there.

She left the property followed by a host of paps and went to Dunkin Donuts first for a coffee drink. After coffee, she went to Planet Nails and tans for a two-hour manicure/pedicure session. The paps were fighting with each other outside in the parking lot while they waited. On the way inside Planet Nails, the pap who’s here every day videotaped Kate and said to Kate “You know Kate, if we didn’t have such a complicated relationship, I’d give you a big hug right now.” Kate responded “don’t bother.”

This is a funny story that is so very typical of Kate’s behavior.

Back in December of 2010, Kate had not been photographed locally for more than ten days because her pap was out of the country shooting a couple of A-List celebrities. Kate had gotten used to coming and going unnoticed for a few days, so she was out and about running errands, looking a hot mess – no makeup, hair unkempt, shabby-chic clothes. Not her best look. But on this day, the pap was back in town and he surprised her by showing up at the tanning salon where she was taking care of some important Kate business. When she came outside and saw him there, she seemed horrified that she looked, well, like a mother of eight from Berks County, Pennsylvania, which was something of an atrocity to Kate Gosselin, though. She quickly jumped in her car and made a bee-line back to her house, a 20-minute drive, where she stayed for 30 minutes, only to come right back out and drive to approximately the same location she had just come from. She went to Planet Nails to get her nails done.

So what was so important that she had to race back home? The pap was back in town. Kate had rushed home to fix her hair, put on makeup, change her clothes into something glamorous, and put on high heels – just for him. And you. Kate is so consumed by her public image and appearance that she wasted an hour driving back home to change, just so she would look good for the tabloids – the ones she says she doesn’t pay attention to. Meanwhile, Collin and Alexis were sitting at home with a babysitter.

After leaving the nail salon, she went straight back home for the day.

By the end of the summer of 2009, the Gosselin frenzy had died down and the
hordes of paparazzi had gone away. For more than 2 years after that, except for a day in April 2010, and on a special occasion here and there, there was only one lone paparazzo who would come by to photograph Kate. But Kate needed to keep up the illusion that she was in demand. She continued to give her fans the impression that she was still being hounded constantly by throngs of photographers.

It was
usually one pap, once a month. Maybe.

As of this printing in 2012, having been off of television for over a year, Kate has taken to posting photos and videos of her children on Twitter and her own Kate + My 8 website for all the world to see. She is so desperate to get herself and her childr
en back on television that she tweets every detail of their private lives to strangers, trying to keep interest in them alive. Kate Gosselin has become her own paparazzi. While other celebrity mothers go to great lengths to ensure their children’s privacy, Kate Gosselin does the exact opposite. She shares their thoughts, their secrets, their words and, worst of all, their private photos, with the world.

In June of 2011, rock singer, Pink, posted this on her website:

“Here’s the bottom line: we don't want you to take our little girl's picture. We don't want you to one day follow our little girl home from school. We don't want our little girl's picture in a magazine or on a blog. If you take or publish her picture, it is against our wishes, and without our consent as parents, as people.”

Pink sounds like a normal parent trying to protect her child.

Recently
, Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner successfully lobbied for and got into law an anti-paparazzi bill 606, making it illegal in California for paparazzi to photograph celebrity’s children without their consent. “We’re moms here who are just trying to protect our children,” Berry told the legislators. “These are little innocent children who didn’t ask to be celebrities. They didn’t ask to be thrown into this game and they don’t have the wherewithal to process what’s happening. We don’t have a law in place to protect them from this.”

Kate has obviously never felt the need to protect her children from the prying eyes of strangers, nor has she ever respected their privacy. On the contrary, she has done everything in her power to prevent her children from having any privacy. She has purposefully trotted her kids out in front of the cameras to entertain others, thus inviting the attention of the paparazzi. So, when Pink tweeted that “Paparazzi stalking children should be illegal,” Kate had the absolute nerve to tweet this in response: