Read KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN Online
Authors: Robert Hoffman
Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
August 2010
Steve Neild was in town and at Kate’s house very early today for a TLC shoot. The crew got to the house at 9 am and readied for a trip to Boscov’s department store in the Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing. This was the second of two days of shooting back-to-school shopping scenes. The little kids should love when TLC is filming because it’s
the only time they get to go anywhere with Kate. They didn’t show any signs of having fun though judging by the looks on their faces as they were led from the van to the store. They looked like kids being made to work instead of playing and enjoying themselves.
Steve drove the Sprinter van from the house to the store, and then quickly gave up his seat when they pulled in so Kate could get behind the wheel and give the impression to the cameras that she actually drove the family shopping. There’s nothing real about this reality show. Steve got out and made sure nobody approached the family or did anything remotely suspicious. He watches over them like they’re his own family.
Once shopping/filming wrapped at the mall, the crew headed back home to get ready for the handover of custody to Jon. Steve stayed at the house while the TLC crew packed up their gear and left for the day.
Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
August 2010
Steve Neild’s car was at Kate’s house very early this morning along with Ashley the nanny. Kate and Steve left in a limo and were followed to NYC where they checked into the Essex house. Along the way they stopped at a Dunkin Donuts to grab some coffee. It was raining pretty hard and Steve got out of the limo and came around and opened the door for Kate who climbed out wearing a very low cut blouse with her ample cleavage visible. Pretty casual for a back-seat limo trip with your bodyguard. Kate made a fuss about having to walk in the rain and she yelled at Steve to get her an umbrella but Steve just told her “a little rain won’t kill you. Let’s go.” And they went inside the store for coffee. After that it was straight to the Essex House where they always stay when in the city. Again, Steve held the doors for Kate as they went inside.
Nobody I spoke to knew of any reason for Kate to be there, ie. Talk show appearance etc.
When Kate left the house this morning, the kids were upset that she was leaving them again but all Kate said to the little kids was “Mommy has to work. Have fun while I’m away.”
Jon and Kate Gosselin PA Reporting
November 2010
Kate and Steve and all eight kids had a long lunch this past Friday at a restaurant in Wyomissing, PA. They looked like a big family out to eat except the kids were scolded before entering the restaurant. Kate was bent over the little ones yelling at them and pointing her finger in their faces. The kids looked scared and very unhappy. Steve just stood there and let Kate scream at them before going inside. At the table, the kids barely said a word and looked sad. Kate only ordered three meals for the sextuplets to share.
KATE GOSSELIN
Q: Any anecdotal evidence of her bodyguard (Steve Neild) being too present?
When Kate and Steve left the house in the limo for LA on Saturday, the kids were outside to see them off in the driveway, and rather than focus on Kate leaving, the sextuplets were yelling “Bye Steeeeeeve! Bye Steeeeeve!!”
What must Gina have been thinking as she sent her husband off in a limo with the woman he’s rumored to be having an affair with, one day before she celebrates her birthday?
At this point, I couldn’t be any less interested in finding out if the Kate/Steve pairing is a business relationship or something more. What I do know is that Kate Gosselin has held herself up to be a shining example of a good, Christian woman. It seems that if she gave even the slightest consideration to her Christianity, she wouldn’t be prancing around in skimpy clothing with her married “bodyguard.” Kate has heard the rumors for years, and her ex-husband has cited the affair rumors as a reason for their marriage failing, yet she continues to flaunt her relationship with Steve Neild in public.
Abstain from all appearance of evil.
– 1 Thessalonians 5:22
During the summer of 2009, I was at the Gosselin house alone, standing among the trees outside the property, when I watched as Kate drove down the driveway and through the front gate. “Jon’s dogs,” Shoka and Nala, ran out into the street behind her and chased her down the road, in full view of Kate.
I know she saw them leave the property, because she stopped for a moment in the middle of the road and looked back at them, as if she might actually turn around. I thought she was going to drive back and make sure the family dogs got safely back inside the electric fence, since the gate had closed and they were locked out. She decided against it, however, because she drove away, leaving the dogs to fend for themselves along a very well-traveled (since the Gosselins moved in) country road.
Once the dogs realized they couldn’t get back through the gate, they became scared and confused and began behaving erratically. They started running around on the road in front of the Gosselin’s property, coming dangerously close to being hit by cars several times. Then, they saw me. They started walking towards me, and I was sure I was going to be mauled by the two police-trained German Shepherds. I stood very still.
Now, I love animals, especially
dogs, but I’m sure you will understand my concern when Shoka and Nala headed in my direction. I had spent weeks talking to them through the security fence, but that’s like being on the outside of the glass talking to Hannibal Lecter. There’s a sense of security there.
But now they were roaming free and coming toward me, tongues out panting and tails-a-wagging. I was on the phone with a pap friend at the time, and he told me to climb a tree. Paps are helpful like that. I hung up, made my peace with God, and tried to get Jon on the phone. He was in a meeting in New York City, so he didn’t answer my first call. After my third try, he must have figured it was important, so he answered.
I quickly told Jon my predicament, and he assured me that since I had been standing at the fence every day for months, the dogs knew my voice and my smell and probably wouldn’t kill me. (I think he was joking.) Very reassuring. He asked me to please round them up, take off their electric dog collars, and get them back inside the property.
Sure enough, both dogs were very friendly to me, just as Jon had predicted, and they allowed me to remove their collars. Nala, the female, who I’m guessing was the smarter of the two, didn’t want to wait around for help getting back inside. A few minutes after I got her collar off, she ran and safely jumped over the fence to relax on the other side. Shoka, on the other hand, was a bit more stubborn. Even after I took his collar off, he didn’t want to go anywhere near the fence, so I sat with him in the driveway by the front gate, and we waited for over an hour for Kate to get home.
Shoka and I had a good time together. He let me pet him, and he lounged in my lap as I sat in the shade next to the gate. Shortly before Kate arrived back at the house, Shoka finally allowed me to guide him under a low spot in the fence. He lay down with Nala, and the two probably had a nice discussion about their unsettling adventure.
I’m sure Kate would have enjoyed seeing what happened next. After getting Shoka inside the fence, I decided to walk over to where I had put my backpack. Not even giving it a thought, I walked right up to the fence – still holding the two electric dog collars in my hand. When I got close to the fence, the collars activated and zapped the heck out of me. I didn’t know what hit me, and I screamed like a baby. It’s too bad Kate missed it.
Kate was stoic but polite when she got back home. I handed her both of the dogs’ collars, but she had no idea what I was giving her. One of the twins had to point out what they were.
As a reporter, I ha
d
wanted to talk to Kate in person for some time for
US Weekly
, but I wasn’t about to start asking her questions in front of the kids. Instead, I handed her a piece of paper with my name and contact information on it, hoping that she would give in and at least answer a question or two – at a time of her choosing – because I had helped her family’s dogs. Call me naive.
I found out later that as soon as she got inside the house, she threw my information in the trash and made a joke about me “thinking I was going to get on her good side because I helped her dogs.” What was I thinking? It was extremely hot that day. I must have been delusional to even try.
Kate’s apparent lack of concern for the safety of Shoka and Nala begs the question: Just how much did Kate like taking care of the family dogs? In short, she didn’t. For Kate, the dogs were nothing more than another freebie that made for a few interesting episodes of reality television. After the novelty had worn off, they became a burden to her and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. When the divorce proceedings started and Jon was no longer at the house to take care of them, Kate showed her true colors.
Kate made it completely clear to Jon and the entire family that those dogs were “his dogs,” and it was his job to take care of them. I’m not exactly sure how she expected Jon to take care of them when it wasn’t his custody time and he wasn’t allowed on the property, but Kate didn’t care about those details.
Kate totally and completely ignored Shoka and Nala and kept them locked inside their cages behind the house. She didn’t feed them, and she left them imprisoned, surrounded by their own excrement and vomit until Jon was around to take care of them. I reported this to
US Weekly
and to the local Animal Rescue League, as did several other people with knowledge of the situation. The dogs were so traumatized that they chewed through their metal cages to get out.
Kate finally allowed Mady and Cara to care for the dogs when Jon wasn’t at the house. It became their responsibility to feed, clean and entertain the dogs, just as it had become their responsibility to do the same for the sextuplets much of the time.
Although I never saw it myself, I was told that Kate also physically abused Shoka. She did the same to Nala, but Nala growled at her and threatened to bite her. That’s probably the real reason Nala was permanently banished from the family.
For anyone who doesn’t believe that Kate could beat a dog, please remember that she was capable of hitting her children when they were just toddlers in diapers. It should be no stretch at all, then, to believe that she would be OK with beating a dog, especially one who had been trained to not bite her.
Kate finally had enough and made Jon get rid of “his dogs.” I was there with Jon the day they were taken away. Jon was sad, and the kids were very, very sad. Kate couldn’t have cared any less. When asked about the dogs at the Southern Women’s Show in Charlotte, NC, in September 2009, Kate said that she just needed a break from them and they would be back. She said that the breeder “took them back for a short period of time.” She also said, “I’m feeling like I have not enough time to take care of my kids, let alone give the dogs what they need, and the kids surprisingly weren’t that upset about it. They’ll come back I’m sure at some point. But for now, I just needed a break.” Kate also told a “joke” about how crazy the dogs are. “They sleep in a metal crate... a huge metal crate. They bent the bars and got out. I think in the winter I’m going to have them pull the kids in a sleigh.”
Kate’s handlers should have told her that there is nothing funny whatsoever about the dogs being confined for so long and becoming so desperate to be free that they bent the metal bars of a cage.
Fast-forward a year, and Discovery/TLC was looking for episode ideas to rehab/rebuild Kate’s tarnished image, so they decided to bring the dogs back to the kids…for filming, of course. Kate was initially dead-set against the idea, but she went along with it on one condition - that only Shoka be allowed to return to the family. Nala would now be left alone without her family or her brother.
The rumors regarding her cruelty to the dogs continued to plague Kate, so in 2011, she decided to do what she had done so successfully for all those years when she lied about how much her kids loooooooved filming their reality show: she denied, deflected and called her critics bullies. And in true Kate Gosselin form, she also started to totally overcompensate in her tweeting and blogging. To prove how wrong everyone was, she started blogging about Shoka on her website. Oh, correction. Shoka started writing blogs about
himself (http://www.kateplusmy8.com/category/shoka-diaries/).