‘Special Forces’: Collin Gosselin Chokes Back Tears Over Mom Kate’s Past Actions

Alyssa Norwin October 15, 2026, 10:30 pm

What To Know

Collin Gosselin was called in for tactical questioning on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.
He recalled growing up with “drill instructor” Kate Gosselin as a mother.
Collin nearly cried while discussing how his mother’s actions allegedly got him discharged from the military.

Collin Gosselin was called in for tactical questioning with the Directing Staff (DS) on the October 15 episode of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. While meeting with Rudy Reyes and Jovon “Q” Quarles, Collin opened up about his biggest struggle on the course.

“I think sometimes when the rest of the group are conversing, I struggle to mingle myself in there,” he explained. “I guess I just don’t put myself out there. It’s hard to trust.”

Collin cited his non-conventional childhood and mom Kate Gosselin as the reason for why he often finds himself as an outsider today. “I was on TV since I was 3. I’m one of eight kids, and I’m a sextuplet, so I guess we were some kind of attraction as kids. I was kind of forced on the TV,” he shared. “My mom, I guess you could say, she’s like a drill instructor. I was scared of her as a kid.”

He told Reyes and Q that he “started to see things for what they were” and realized he was being “exploited” as a child. “I didn’t want to do it anymore. After I voiced that I didn’t want to be on TV, I was pulled out of school, I was isolated from my siblings, my best friends, in my own house,” he continued. “She kept me away from everybody. I had nowhere to go.”

Collin recalled being “sent off to an institution for three years” when he was 11. “I was alone,” he said. “Kids came and went; I made friends, and they left. I never had to rely on anybody but myself. It’s tough. I went through high school and had struggles with relationships and friends and all that stuff.”

KATE GOSSELIN, JOEL KEVIN GOSSELIN, COLLIN THOMAS GOSSELIN, MADELYN

Donna Svennevik/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

After high school graduation, Collin enlisted in the Marines, which he described as “f**king awesome.” He said he learned what “brotherhood was like” during his time in the military. “I was 10 and a half weeks in, and my mom made a statement on Instagram that I had all these crazy diagnoses and emotional disorders,” Collin revealed, while getting emotional and fighting back tears. “It got back to the [chain of command], and they told me to go home and get a psych eval. They dumped me off, man. It’d be difficult to ever get me back there.”

Collin considered the Marines his “only shot at [having] a family,” and said, “It sucks. That’s the life I want. I’ll probably never get my chance again.” Reyes urged Collin to use his “tough background” in a “positive way” and to consider his fellow recruits on Special Forces like family.

“I think I have trouble being vulnerable sometimes, but I really want to do this course because I’m not defined by my struggles; I’m defined by my successes and the things that I overcome,” Collin said in a confessional.

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He then opened up to the other recruits about how his conversation went. “That was a lot,” he admitted. ‘They noticed how I don’t always indulge myself in the group. They’re right. As a kid, my mom separated me from my siblings, and they would all eat dinner as a family, and they would go, and I would eat my dinner alone. I gotta learn to just be able to be around people.”