AN emotional Collin Gosselin choked up as he read out a heartbreaking letter - sent to dad Jon begging him to "save" him from a mental health facility - for the first time since he wrote it in crayon seven years ago.
In an exclusive video interview with the U.S. Sun, Jon and Kate Plus 8 star Collin, has spoken about his harrowing childhood, alleging he was abused by his mom Kate before being sent to a mental health hospital when he was 11.
Collin, 20, starred alongside his five sextuplet siblings and twin sisters in the popular reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8, which has recently returned to TLC - but he says there was a dark side to life growing up for him that was never shown on camera.
Echoing accusations that emerged during Jon and Kate's custody battle, Collin alleged his mom segregated him from his siblings, took him out of school, and would zip-tie him up and lock him in the basement for days on end, before getting him diagnosed with a slew of psychiatric and behavioral conditions.
Medical records that Collin has bravely shared with The U.S. Sun show how he was diagnosed with autism, ADHD, bipolar, PTSD, oppositional defiant disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder as a child - diagnoses that a recent mental health evaluation found he no longer has - put on multiple psychiatric medications, before being taken to Fairmount Behavioral Health System in Pennsylvania, on May 6, 2016, as an inpatient.
After months in the institute, where he described feeling "terrified" and "alone," he managed to write a letter to his dad - who had no idea where Collin was as he had lost custody of his kids - on June 11, 2017, asking him to take him home and let him meet his then-partner Colleen.
Reading the note out for the first time as an adult, he said, "So I wrote here, I wrote here, 'Dear dad, I'm not trying to trick you, but I still love you. I told mom I want to live with you and she said no.
"But right, she can't choose for me. And I'm old enough now, I'm your son, not hers.
"She was abusive to me after I left her house. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry, take this to court....And I said, dad, you're my savior. Please help me. And let me meet Colleen.
"I'm counting on you to get me out of here. And then I wrote the name and I found the address on a brochure so that he could find me."
Emotional Collin, described reading the letter as "heavy" and said: "I remember saying that I'm not trying to trick you because I remember thinking that nobody believed me as a kid.
"My mom always told me nobody would believe me. And I said that to my dad, I'm not trying to trick you, because I was that desperate that I had to explain to him that this wasn't a trick.
"And I hadn't seen him for so long because I wasn't allowed to visit him. I did want to live with him.
"But yeah, it was tough. And looking back at it, I'm really glad I did this. It was tough.
"I was scared to write it because I hadn't seen my dad in years and I didn't really know what he would think, like, 'Is this real?' Like, 'Why is he trying to reach out to me?'
"I'm sure he knew why I'd been trying to reach out to him, but I was scared to write this.
"It was a leap of faith that I had to take. And I'm looking back, I'm really glad I did that for my younger self."
Jon told us he first found out Collin had been institutionalized via the sheriff's office, but had no idea where he had been taken and was applying through the court to try and find out.
He said once he received the letter from Collin, he was heartbroken and immediately started trying to gain custody of him, which took several agonising months.
Jon told The U.S. Sun, "Getting that letter from Collin, was heartbreaking. Immediately I started the court proceedings to get legal custody of Collin, it was around 2017.
"Collin went in there when he was 11. So 2016, I mean, that's so young. He was like the tiniest person. I think what makes me feel so sick is that she went in there one time to visit him and told him he'd ruined their family and he was 11 years old. All to protect her reputation.
"He didn't get to say goodbye to his siblings because they went to school that day and then he was hospitalized."
And he ripped into ex Kate, saying, "She threw this 11-year-old child into the place and said he's dangerous to all of us, he's always been dangerous even though she kept him tied up downstairs."
Collin alleges he had no formal education during his time at the facility - and recalled his days were filled with a lot of "nothing."
"Just sleep, wake up, eat meals," he said.
Collin said that while the institution was not as bad as the abuse he alleges he suffered at home, "it was still very scary because I didn't know where I was."
"I didn't know where this institution was. There wasn't a big billboard out front where I could even get the name of where I was," he added.
"I was just inside this building and, you know, around a bunch of strangers and a new routine. And it was scary. It was very scary...
"You go outside some of the time, but other than that, a lot of sitting around, a lot of waiting around.
"And a lot of the time I just sat there wondering 'When I'm gonna leave?' because I had so much time to think. So that's what I thought about, 'When will I be out of here?' And I thought that for 22 months, I sat there thinking it would maybe be next week, next month, next year..."
Collin said that getting him out of the facility even once his dad knew where he was was a lengthy process.
"This letter was dated in June of 2017 and I wasn't out of there until the end of 2018," he said.
"I know my dad spent a lot of time in court. And I spent a lot of time wondering where this letter ended up, but the day that I was told that I was getting out of there, that was the only news I needed because I knew something had happened.
"And I knew that my dad knew where I was, which this letter was the only way he would have known that, because my mother, nobody told him, he didn't ever get wind. Nobody told him.
"He didn't know where I was. He didn't know where his son was."
Once he was out and living with his dad, sister Hannah, and Jon's then-partner Colleen, Collin began to adjust to life in the outside world.
While he struggled to catch up on his missed education, he soon began to thrive educationally.
"It took a long time. From 2018 until when I was probably in my like sophomore year of high school, it took years to wean off these medications [I had been given as a child], cause you can't just subtly stop things.
"But I had to wean off of them and check in with doctors and all kinds of different people.
"Integrating back into like society with you know, kids in my age group, it was tough.
"It was like towards the end of middle school. And, you know, I remember finding some academic work a little difficult and I didn't really know how to talk to my peers, but, you know, I kind of look back now with like memories and I laugh at myself because I was so awkward.
"But yeah, I mean, in the second like semester of eighth grade, I remember making honor roll and that was a huge accomplishment for me...
"And I'd say I kind of picked up and got to work adjusting."
Collin graduated high school and joined the Marines, although he ended up being dismissed during training just weeks after his mother posted on her Instagram page claiming Collin had "multiple psychiatric diagnoses" and showed "unpredictable and violent behaviors."
After his dismissal, the Marines requested that Collin undergo a rigorous mental health evaluation in a bid to prove he was fit to serve and said he could potentially rejoin at a later date.
Collin has now shared this medical evaluation with the U.S. Sun, which found he has none of the conditions Kate claims he has - and no current indication of any other mental or behavioral issue.
Kate has declined to comment on Collin's allegations. The U.S. Sun also reached out to Dr. Paul E. Delfin, who performed his evaluation, but he declined to comment.
Kate's former lawyer, Richard Puleo, responded by saying he didn't think Kate had ever "intentionally harm Collin."
"I think she did whatever she did to protect herself and her family from some of his troubled behavior as a child," Puleo said.
He went on to say: "That's not to say he's got psychological impairment, I'm not a psychiatrist. Or whether his issues were properly diagnosed and properly treated...
"However I think if Kate did the things that Collin is accusing Kate of, she would have been investigated by the authorities and prosecuted...
"Kate has no interest in saying anything, which is what she's done in the past."