thanked father for supporting him after the 20-year-old spoke out about ’s alleged abuse.
“It has taken me a long time to find the strength needed to speak about my mother’s abuse,” Collin, 20, wrote via Instagram Story on Tuesday, September 10. “I have finally found my voice, and I hope to be the voice for children everywhere facing abuse. It is never OK. Your story can be told, just like mine.”
Collin noted that it hasn’t been easy to speak out.
“As well, I wish to bring attention to the system that failed me as a child, and hopefully, in turn, it will help others,” he continued. “Seeing pictures of my younger self is still incredibly difficult, but today I feel a small sense of justice by speaking it.”
Collin concluded with a shout-out to Jon, adding, “I’d like to thank my father for fighting so hard to obtain custody of me, and saving me from the institution where I was wrongfully committed. Thank you dad.”
Collin made headlines on Tuesday when he claimed Kate, 49, was “physically aggressive” and “verbally” abusive when Collin was a child.
“My mother had a room built in our unfinished section of the storage basement. She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside,” Collin alleged during an interview with The U.S. Sun. “It was like a containment room, literally, and it had a mattress on the floor and that’s how I lived.”
According to Collin, he was “treated differently” compared to his siblings. (Kate and Jon, 47, share 23-year-old twins Mady and Cara, and 20-year-old sextuplets Collin, Hannah, Leah, Joel, Alexis and Aaden.)
“It was rough. I definitely went through it a lot as a kid from my mother’s end. So, it was tough,” Collin alleged. “I just remember being isolated from my siblings and constantly taking the fall for her emotions or the tough things going on in her life.”
Collin claimed the abuse started when he was around 8 years old and included him being put in the isolation room “multiple times.” Kate then allegedly “zip-tied my hands and feet together and bolt locked the door, turned the lights off and had cameras there just watching me.”
“I was isolated and I was taken away from them and I didn’t eat dinners with my family,” he claimed. “I was there, you know, most of the day because I didn’t go to school after a certain point. So, most of the day I was in that room, and I was away from my siblings, and I never really went outside.”
Jon supported Collin’s account, telling the outlet, “My friends’ in-laws bought our house and one time they asked me ‘Why is there a room in the basement with a bed and a lock on the outside?’ It must have been terrifying for him.”
Kate has not yet publicly responded to the claims but her attorney told The Sun that he didn’t believe she would do anything to “intentionally harm” Collin.
The famous family entered the spotlight in 2007 with the premiere of Jon & Kate Plus 8, which ran for 11 seasons. After the show came to an end, Jon became the primary guardian for Hannah and Collin until they turned 18 but has been estranged from his other children for several years.
