Jon And Kate Plus Eight Equals Divorce
Episode Reveals Couples Separated , Filed For Divorce June 22, 2009
Jun 22, 2009
Five years ago TLC introduced the story of Jon and Kate Gosselin, a young couple strapped with the seemingly impossible task of raising eight children while maintaining balance, family and sanity. With a pair of twins and younger sextuplets, the show was an immediate sensation.
Personalities Of The Parents Became a Primary Focus
With such innocent episodes at the beginning of the series, such as family vacations, dentist visits and grocery shopping, the show was enticing in its' novelty and complexity.
Anyone with children of their own enjoyed seeing their lives and stresses multiplied on screen and even the childless tuned in to see the drama of an overextended, yet seemingly happy family.
As the episodes began to pile up and the seasons wore on, more and more talk was given to the differences between Jon and Kate themselves. Most viewers, media outlets or television critics, lambasted Kate for being a nagging, near verbally abusive foil to Jon, who was portrayed as a the quiet but good-natured "punching bag" for Kate's dominant run of the household.
The interplay between the couple themselves, became just as entertaining to viewers as watching the children being herded, cared for and corralled through everyday life. This focus, shifting from the "family" of eight into the butting of heads between the two caregivers may have been the straw that broke this couple's back.
Tabloids Report Alleged Affair And Up The Ante On Exposure
As the fourth season of the show was coming to a close, tabloids starting reporting alleged all-nighters and even affairs that Jon had participated in while Kate was away.
Blurred photos and eyewitnesses reports of Jon, minus his wedding ring, escorting a young woman from a bar, turned this seemingly happy-ending family upside-down overnight.
Witnesses, friends and family of Jon and Kate came crawling from the woodwork to either denounce the stories as untrue or bear witness to Jon's infidelity. The brother of the supposed woman Jon had been spending time with even sold his "eyewitness" story of a sexual relationship between his sister and Jon to a tabloid television show.
Meanwhile Kate was also underfire for her personality quirks, constant travel and treatment of Jon. Some seemed to think she had driven him to this behavior by her verbal abuse or by long trips away from home that she had made while supporting a book tour. There was even speculation that Kate herself may be in an inappropriate relationship with her bodyguard, who travels with her to public appearances.
Kate denied all wrongdoing on her part and insisted she had been faithful. The couple skirted the issue of Jon's fidelity by insisting that "mistakes" and "bad judgement" had been made on his part.
Monday's Jon & Kate Plus Eight Episode Had Sad Final Answer
Through promos from TLC and stories in the press, Monday's second episode of the fifth season of the show seemed to promise revelations about the exact status and state of Jon and Kate's relationship or lack thereof.
Starting out innocently enough, the show began with the children being built playhouses while Jon and Kate kept their distance -although not so subtle remarks about the positioning of the toys themselves brought Jon and Kate at odds. When Kate suggested a different placement, she offered that she was probably inviting a "World War III" argument.
Kate also admitted during the episode that she understands that some may view her as "hard, crass or jaded" but insisted that this was a survival technique that would keep her from "laying down to die".
Jon on the other hand, seemed eerily calm as he compared life to a "rollercoaster that sometimes goes off the track" and adding incomplete statements such as," I don't hate Kate, but.....".
Jon also bemoaned that "society" had come to care more about what he had eaten for lunch than about soldiers in the war. In a more reasonable tone, Kate seemed to understand that the family themselves had invited the world into their lives but that the problems of the couple would have happened "whether the world was watching or not".
Kate also expressed fear of being alone and of keeping up the pretense of smiling on the outside and crying on the inside. "I need relief," she said at one point. "I need to turn the page."
Jon seemed to be the more angry of the two, proclaiming that he had been "too passive" in his relationship with Kate and had let her "rule the roost".
The Final Outcome For The TLC Family
At the end of Monday's episode, all the audio clips seemed to cohesively come together as both Jon and Kate, while being interviewed, announced that they were separating.
"I fear the label that we failed," Kate said. "I fear how it will affect the kids and that they'll be another statistic."
Jon said he felt that it a was a "new chapter in his life" and he "was only 32".
The couple commented that they would be splitting time in their newly purchased home with the children and the taping for the reality show would continue.
It was unclear on exactly what date this episode was taped but immediately after the words "separation" were used, a black screen appeared on air that informed viewers that Jon and Kate Gosselin had filed for a dissolution of marriage on June 22, the same day the show aired.
For more info on the reality television show Jon & Kate Plus Eight, visit:
http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/jon-and-kate/episode-guide.html
