(NewsNation) — Sixteen years after Jon Gosselin and Kate Gosselin had a very public split, drama continues to follow the former reality TV stars.  

Collin Gosselin, the 21-year-old son and one of the couple’s sextuplets, took to TikTok on Aug. 8 and shared a series of photos of himself alongside his siblings Alexis, Aeden, Hannah, Leah and Joel, the remaining sextuplets, and his twin sisters, Mady and Cara, 24.  

“Born to be a team, us against the world. Forced to do it alone, and wonder everyday what our lives could’ve looked like,” he captioned the photo while Adele’s “Hometown Glory” plays in the background.  

Colin Gosselin’s estrangement from family 

Colin is reportedly estranged from most of his family, excluding his father and sister Hannah, with whom he lives, according to E! News.  

The 21-year-old alleged in 2024 that Kate Gosselin “zip-tied” his “hands and feet together” and locked him in the basement. Kate Gosselin has denied that claim.

Colin told The U.S. Sun at the time that he felt he was always treated differently from his seven other siblings by his mom. When he was 11, she reportedly admitted Collin to a mental health facility following diagnoses of several behavioral and psychiatric conditions, which he believes he never had. 

He reportedly blamed his mother for the family fracture in 2023, E! News reported.  Kate sent him to a boarding school for children with behavioral issues back in 2016 before his father stepped in to remove him two years later. 

“I think my mom kind of drove a social barrier between us,” he said in a July 2023 episode of Vice TV’s “Dark Side of the 2000s.” “She told them the story one way, and, obviously, I see the story a different way.” 

‘Jon and Kate Plus 8’ 

The first season of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” premiered in 2007, showing the parents raising their eight kids.  

The show performed well on TLC, but the Season 5 premiere hit a record high of 9.8 million viewers in May 2009 amid rumors that Jon Gosselin was having an affair with a 23-year-old teacher, according to Hollywood Reporter. 

The couple broke up in 2009.  

Gosselins’ public feud 

Over the years, Kate and Jon have gone back and forth in the press, with Jon referring to Kate as an “absentee mom” when she appeared on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2010, according to InTouch Weekly.  

The father of eight has backed up Colin’s claim and said in a court filing that his ex-wife was abusing his children.  

The couple reportedly has no contact with one another, but Jon said on TikTok on Saturday that Kate blocked him on the app, Us Weekly reports. 

Reality TV kids can be impacted psychologically  

Dr. Drew Pinsky, who hosted VH-1’s “Celeb Rehab,” said that reality TV can “open the kids to a level of public scrutiny, of shame and of failure. You have to ask yourself if that is conducive to positive outcomes as they get older,” he told The Wrap in 2009.  

He added, “Children can’t give informed consent by definition, only the parents can do that — and reality shows generally don’t cast adults who have the highest level of mental health. They are severe narcissists who are obsessed with celebrity.” 

Polly Kahl, a licensed counselor who wrote the book “Jon & Kate Plus Eight: Reality TV & the Selling of the Gosselins,” appeared on “Banfield” in 2024 to discuss Kate Gosselin’s institutionalization of Colin.  

“I think that all of them have experienced something that I’ve come to term called ‘fame trauma,’ which is what happens when people become rich and famous when not having earned it,” she told NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield.