Collin Gosselin Talks Being 'Forced Apart, Pitted Against Each Other' Amid Sibling Estrangement

The former child reality star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 took to TikTok late last week with a throwback photo of the family in their younger years, when all eight of them were still together. "Born to be a team, us against the world..." he wrote on this picture.

That was followed by a shot of Collin today behind the wheel of his car, on which he added, "Forced to do it alone, and wonder everyday what our lives could've looked like."

He expanded on his thoughts in a heart-wrenching caption to the post, writing, "Forced apart, pitted against each other. All the fame and money in the world, but what about kids being kids?"

Jon & Kate Plus 8 -- later just Kate Plus 8 -- was one of the biggest reality series in America when it launched in 2007. The nation had already been enraptured by Kate's sextuplet pregnancy and then healthy births of their children (Aaden, Alexis, Collin, Hannah, Joel, and Leah) with Jon, joining the couple's older twins, Madelyn and Cara.

The series would run for a decade on Discovery Health Channel (for 2 seasons) and then TLC, during which the kids started to grow up and the Gosselin marriage completely fell apart. In 2009, they divorced and things grew more and more messy between the couple and their children.

Now 21 years old, Collin has perhaps been the most vocal of the Gosselin children, admitting to his troubled years and the challenges that brought to his life. It also took him out of Kate's home and ultimately landed him with his father, which is what ultimately led to the estrangement he now laments with his siblings.

"I will always love them more than anything," Collin said of his seven brothers and sisters. "The tears I shed behind closed doors, thinking about the memories we could’ve shared. I love you guys."

In October, Collin shared that despite shocking abuse allegations he made against Kate, he'd still be "open" to repairing their relationship ... on one condition.

In an interview with The U.S. Sun, the 21-year-old shared that the "only way" he believes he would be able to reconnect with his mother would be if she were to "come forward with the truth" about her alleged treatment of himself and his family, including his father Jon Gosselin.

"So first and foremost, my relationship with my brothers and sisters is of top priority to me," Collin told the outlet at the time. "And I think the only way that my mother and I would be able to reconnect and fix our relationship in the future is, if she would just come forward with the truth and all the things that she has kept under wraps."

"And you know the many times that she's tried to soil my name and my father's name. I just would want her to come forward with the truth," Collin added, before concluding, "[But] Yes, that door would be open. 100 percent."

The comments came a month after he'd accused his mother of having put put in a mental health facility as a child and treating him unfairly. The former U.S. Marine told  The U.S. Sun then that he'd been discharged after Kate posted on social media about "multiple psychiatric diagnoses" that at one time saw him institutionalized for 22 months.

In that interview, he alleged physical and verbal abuse at Kate's hands, including claims that "multiple times she had zip-tied my hands and feet together." He further claimed she built a room in the family's basement and would lock him in there, zip-tied in this manner.

"She would bolt-lock the door, turn the lights off and that camera's there, just watching me," he told The Sun. "In that room that my mother had built, oftentimes she had zip-tied my hands and feet together, and kept me locked in there for most or all of the day for multiple days."

Kate declined to comment to those allegations, but her attorney Richard Puleo provided a lengthy statement responding to some of Collin's claims, and defending Kate's intentions.

"There's always two sides to every story and when things take place in the past, it's hard to determine because people have different recollections and perspectives," he prefaced his remarks.

"However I can personally attest to this situation as I knew Kate and all eight of her children since they were small and I don't believe Kate ever did anything intentionally to harm Collin," he added. "I think she did whatever she did to protect her family from some of his troubled behavior as a child."

"That's not to say he's got psychological impairment, I'm not a psychiatrist," Puleo continued.

"Despite my mother, and you know her, her constant effort to protect her reputation at the cost of mine, and the things that she has said about me and the things that she has done to me, I still feel in my heart. I feel sorry for her," Collin admitted.

"I feel you know, that the things that she has done have been very tough, and they have affected me," he went on. "However, you know my drive and my want to move forward and to achieve my dreams is greater than that."