KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN (64 page)

…The Dionne quintuplets (born May 28, 1934) are the first
quintuplets
known to survive their
infancy
. The sisters were born just outside
Callander, Ontario
,
Canada
near the village of
Corbeil
.

…After four months with their family, they were made wards of the King for the next nine years under the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935. The government and those around them began to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction in Ontario.

… Across the road from their birthplace, the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery was built for the five girls and their new caregivers. … The compound had an outdoor playground designed to be a public observation area. It was surrounded by a covered arcade that allowed tourists to observe the sisters behind one-way screens. …It was a nine-room nursery with a staff house nearby. The staff house held the three nurses and the three policemen in charge of guarding them. A housekeeper and two maids lived in the main building with the quintuplets. The buildings were surrounded by a seven foot barbed wire fence.

Approximately 6,000 people per day visited the observation gallery that surrounded an outdoor playground to view the Dionne sisters. Ample parking was provided and almost 3,000,000 people walked through the gallery between 1936 and 1943. Oliva Dionne ran a souvenir shop and a concession store opposite the nursery and the area acquired the name "
Quintland
". The souvenirs pictured the five sisters. There were autographs and framed photographs, spoons, cups, plates, plaques, candy bars, books, postcards, dolls, and much more at this shop … In 1934, the Quintuplets brought in about $1 million, and they attracted in total about $51 million of tourist revenue to Ontario.

This was their normal,
too. And they suffered dearly for it their entire lives.

“MY KIDS LOOOOOOOOOVE FILMING THE SHOW!”

In April of 2011, Kate said this to Matt Lauer on the
Today
show: “It is a very positive fixture still in our lives. It’s
normal
, it’s exciting. They still cheer when the crew comes in the door
. I would not say that if it were not true.”

There she goes again using the word “normal” to describe the completely abnormal action of selling your children’s privacy and childhoods for profit.

During that same interview, Lauer expressed disbelief that Kate could put eight children on a 21-hour flight to Australia and avoid a major family meltdown. Kate said even she was surprised by how smoothly it all went. “It was one of the best flights of our lives.
I’m not kidding.
I’m shocked to be sitting here saying that.”

I don’t doubt that it was a good flight for Kate. She sat with her handsome, married bodyguard, Steve, in first class, while the suffering children sat in another part of the plane with two babysitters, the film crew and the show’s director/producers.

The Season 4 “All You Wanted To Know” episode of
Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht
was one of those episodes TLC used to respond to the negative criticism in the media regarding the show. Most, if not all, of the questions or comments in those types of episodes were written or “planted” by Kate and the show’s producers. This is how they “set the record straight” about how much the kids loved filming:

“Hey, I’m Bonnie, I’m one of the editors on
Jon and Kate Plus Ei8ht
.  You know I’ve gone through tons of footage and it’s pretty obvious to me that the kids are pretty comfortable with the cameras. They go from ignoring them completely to sometimes goofing around and wanting to see themselves in it. It’s just part of everyday life for them.”

We need to give Bonnie, the editor, a big thank you for her input. I’m sure I don’t need to say how stupid and contrived her little speech sounds, but I will anyway. It is beyond absurd that the producers would ask someone whose livelihood was so closely tied to the success of the show, to comment on the children’s supposed comfort around the cameras. What was Bonnie, the editor, going to say? That she had to edit out footage of the children crying and looking miserable? Yeah, right. That would have been Bonnie’s ticket to pink-slipsville.

Kate chimed in with one of my favorite Kate quotes
about the kids:

“They’re just living. They’re not required to do anything. If they don’t like being involved in a shoot, they’re not. If they don’t feel like being around, they’re not. If they want to go to a friend’s house instead of be present for a shoot, they just are. It’s not an issue for the kids.

When talking about the show being put on hold temporarily, pending Jon’s complaint, it was pretty impressive that Kate could say the following with a straight face:

“Over the weekend I told the kids that we’re not filming at this point. And actually, times eight, there was wailing and sobbing. They love our crew, they love the interaction, they love the events. There is nothing harmful about it. They are angry.”

They were angry, all right, but it had nothing to do with the crew not being around.

I have seen no signs of any wailing and sobbing and anger from the kids because of the absence of the film crew. In fact, I have seen quite the opposite. From the first day I went to the Gosselin home to begin reporting for
U
S
Weekly
, I’ve seen the kids react negatively when told they have to film. These are small children who wanted to play and run around. When the crew was at the house, and the kids had to stop what they were doing to be controlled and to film scripted segments of them pretending to do something that they wouldn’t normally be doing, their frustration was very evident.

Yes, they were angry. But not for the reason that Kate says. They were angry because they wanted to be left alone to play and do things that other kids do instead of being herded around like cattle on the family farm, from one set-up fake activity to the next.

I’ve observed the kids while filming and I’ve spoken to the kids about filming. For every minute of film TLC carefully edits to show the kids looking happy, you can bet there are 30 minutes of unseen film showing the kids being miserable about filming.

KATE DOESN’T HAVE A LOT OF CHILD CARE

Let me be clear from the very start. There is nothing wrong with someone having a nanny or others to help with childcare;
however, there is everything wrong with a person who has a nanny and others to help with childcare refusing to acknowledge that those people exist because it would completely contradict a fake image manufactured for a television show.

On
The Talk
, with her publicist standing just off camera, Kate was asked this obviously scripted, pre-approved question: “You don’t have a lot of child care, right?” This question was given to the interviewer by Kate’s publicist to try and rebuild Kate’s tarnished image, in preparation for the upcoming season of
Kate Plus Ei8ht
.

Kate’s mind churned for a few seconds trying to pull out the approved, rehearsed answer, and then she said, “I don’t. I have a babysitter half the week. Three and a half days, um, and I, when I’m at home, which is most of the time, I’m hands on, I cook every meal. I know people want to say other things about me. I’m doing the math homework. I’m taking care of my kids. That is where my heart is, with my kids.”

In this situation, Kate was actually kind of telling the truth while at the same time being very misleading. I’m no genius, so I had my 8-year-old daughter help me with the math on this subject.

Kate made this statement in February, during school, when the kids are out of the house from 7 AM when the bus picks them up, until 4 PM when the bus drops them off.

Here’s how Kate’s “I have a babysitter half the week” lie breaks down:

There are 168 total hours in a week.

(24 hours in a day x 7 days a week equals 168 hours. So far, so good.)

“Half the week” equals 84 hours.

(168 hours divided by 2 equals 84 hours.)

The kids are away at school for 45 hours a week.

(7AM – 4 PM equals 9 hours a day x 5 days a week equals 45 hours)

The kids are in bed for 56 hours a week.

(8 hours a night x 7 days a week equals 56 hours.)

That leaves a possible 67 hours that the kids could possibly be at home and awake.

Kate has a babysitter for 84 hours a week. At least.

That’s not a stretch, believe me, as someone who watched the comings and goings of nannies and babysitters at the house during school and summer vacation for nearly two years. And as someone who’s spoken “off the record” to several of the “helpers” since I’ve been on this job.

There were sometimes up to three babysitters at the house with the kids at any given time during the summer months. Kate also hired a live-in, “overnight” nanny.

And for Kate Gosselin to utter the words, “um, and I, when I’m at the house,
which is most of the time, I’m hands on
…” is laughable. Just read through this book for the real truth about how much time Kate is actually at the house with the kids. Kate looks for any reason to NOT be at the house with the kids. I’ve seen it, on a regular basis, for nearly two years, seven days a week.

Kate tweeted this in 2011 trying to do damage control regarding a tabloid story about all the help she has:

response2article:nvr had 2bsitters-died [email protected] 'salary',sch tuition$-noteven close.hav nvr pd $ 4 Elysasuzanne clothing

THE KIDS ARE AFRAID OF THE PAPARAZZI

The Gosselin kids are certainly not afraid of the paparazzi. Far from it. I spent several months among the paparazzi that came to Pennsylvania to cover the Gosselin story. For the most part, these were a polite, respectful bunch of guys. Every now and then there would be one or two who stepped over the line and would get too close to the kids while photographing them, or worse, in my opinion, would ask Kate questions about the divorce, etc., in front of the kids. They were doing their job though, which was to engage and get a reaction, so I understood their position. They also didn’t have children, like I do, so I’m sure the thought never even occurred to them that what they were doing in front of the kids was even an issue. Your perspective on things changes greatly when you have children.