by Diane Clehane, contributor to thedailybeast.com

From Kate Gosselin to Bravo’s newest Housewives from New Jersey, I’m obsessed with the entire spray-tanned, French-manicured sorority that has managed to turn suburban motherhood into compulsively watchable—albeit train wreck—television.

I’ve never been a regular watcher of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise. But for some inexplicable reason, I just knew I had to watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey—and I can’t stop watching. These five women, who clearly shop at the same places Carmela Soprano did, make the screeching strivers from New York look tame.

And then there’s Gosselin, TLC’s new cash cow and one half of the formerly wholesome, bickering twosome of Jon & Kate Plus 8, about as prototypical a suburban couple (with eight children) as you’d ever find on television. The pair has been transformed into the recession era’s Brangelina, with a record-breaking number of tabloid covers to prove it.

When I see photos of Kate in her red leather (or is it pleather?) jacket and denim miniskirt striding through the airport with her bodyguard, or read stories of a Jersey housewife’s plans to launch a children’s accessory line, I am struck by the thought that in this age of living with less of everything, from money to expectations, even our celebrities have gotten smaller. A lot smaller.

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Filed under: Entertainment • Kate Gosselin

By the time Jon Gosselin arrives at the Manhattan offices of his attorneys, he looks like he's been through a war. Only when he realizes that he's reached this room without being caught by photographers does he crack a smile. "All of them are sitting at my house and I'm here," he says, with some satisfaction, of the paparazzi. "I swoop in and swoop out."

Lately Jon could be forgiven for wanting to disappear entirely. Under attack ever since he was caught leaving a bar at 2 a.m. with another woman, the 32-year-old star of the TLC reality hit Jon & Kate Plus Eight – which chronicles his life with wife Kate, 34, their 8-year-old twins and 5-year-old sextuplets – has seen his family become the target of choice for the tabloids.

But while Kate spoke openly to PEOPLE in May about the perilous state of her marriage, confessing that "Jon is confused and struggling with a lot of different things," Jon himself is cautious about being too candid.

Except when the subject turns to his children. "Exploited?," asks Jon. "I don't even want to use that word, because I think it's ridiculous," he says heatedly. Jon insists his children's happiness will remain his focus – even if keeping them happy means quitting the show.

Read more from People HERE

Filed under: Entertainment • Kate Gosselin • Larry King Live

Talk about hitting the nail on the head from the get-go!

Jon & Kate Plus 8 spectators talk much about how mom/wife Kate Gosselin might be letting fame get to her head. And that her desire to be in the spotlight and her husband's lack of desire for fame is one (just one) reason they're going through a rocky period. That's what they say.

So, it came as a bit of a surprise when Kate opened the last episode ("Kate's Birthday Surprise") addressing exactly that... "My kids are the reason I have always done everything. My kids are the reason I laid on bed rest for 30 entire weeks. My kids are the reason that I wrote the books," she said in the first couch interview of the night, "and it's always about them. And, I know that it looks it's all about me all the time and whatever, but what you don't see is down deep inside it's a desperate desire to provide for my kids."
While Kate's book career is thriving, Jon's holding down the fort at home. But, does he sound comfortable in this role? He said, "So, now I'm like the stay-at-home dad thing and Kate's the career woman, so it's different for me. I think it's different for a guy. We're not moms, nor do we try to be."

READ MORE from E! Online

Filed under: Entertainment • Kate Gosselin

By Aaron Parsley via a People.com exclusive

Where do Jon and Kate Gosselin go from here?

Even they don't entirely know, say the couple after the heartbreaking season premiere of their TLC show, Jon & Kate Plus Eight, drew a record-breaking audience of 9.8 million viewers.

"As many couples do, we are navigating a very difficult time," the couple said in a statement. "Our current situation brings us together around the children and some times sets us apart. We keep our faith that we will make the right decisions for our family."

In Monday's highly-anticipated season premiere, the Gosselins came together to throw a fifth birthday party for their sextuplets, but remained unsure about where they stand as a couple following difficulties in their marriage and media scrutiny.

(Read More)

Filed under: Kate Gosselin • Larry King Live

By Aaron Parsley

With mounting pressure on their marriage and amid intensifying media attention, Jon and Kate Gosselin got back to work on Monday when their hit show, Jon & Kate Plus Eight, returned to TLC for its season five premiere.

The Gosselins put aside their problems (most of the time) to make sure their 5-year-old sextuplets had a birthday complete with piñatas, cake, ice cream and, yes, paparazzi (or "P-people", as Kate tells the kids to call them). Here's how we rated the show – on a scale of 1 to 8.

Kid Cuteness: 8
Still the stars of the show. Special props go to the twins, Madelyn and Cara, for helping their mom put together gift bags for the party, and to Joel, Leah and Alexis (who displayed a sweet interest in one of the young male guests) for thanking Kate for their birthday fest. But Collin takes the peanut butter-frosted cake for his comic mini-meltdowns: First, he lost a green helium-filled balloon, and then got roughed up while diving for candy beneath the Backyardigans piñata.

The Birthday Party: 7
Despite great odds, it was a success. Cold weather, a swarm of insects, lurking paparazzi – and Jon's decision to take a weekend off, leaving Kate with all the planning – didn't spoil the sextuplets' bash. The birthday boys and girls bounced in an inflated castle and, in a highlight of the afternoon, watched a magician produce a real live bunny from thin air. But the biggest treat, for the kids and their parents, was that they got to invite their friends from school for the first time.

(READ MORE)

Filed under: Kate Gosselin

By Kristin Boehm

The show – and the party – must go on, and Kate Gosselin made sure that happened over the weekend.

Outside Saturday, her minivan and two cars affiliated with the TLC show Jon and Kate Plus Eight were trailed by about five cars filled with paparazzi to the Party City in Reading, Penn., where she and all eight Gosselin kids shopped for supplies.

Kate kept the brood in line while buying streamers, balloons, plastic trays, candy and two Backyardigan piñatas. The celebration? A one-week-belated fifth birthday party for sextuplets Alexis, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Leah and Joel at The Blue Falls Grove Water Park on Sunday.

(Read More/See Kate w/ the family this weekend)

Filed under: Kate Gosselin • Larry King Live

By Kate Coyne

She's embroiled in a public scandal linking her husband, Jon Gosselin, to another woman, and Kate Gosselin tells PEOPLE in its latest cover story that she and her spouse have been privately struggling for months.

"I don't know that we're in the same place anymore, that we want the same thing," she says quietly. "I've been struggling with the question of 'Who is this person?' for a while. I remember where I was the first time I heard her name. It's one of those things where you can try to make it go away, but there's blaring, red flashing lights."

The name to which Kate refers belongs to 23-year-old Deanna Hummel, whose brother later claimed she'd been having a months-long affair with Jon.

(Read More)

Filed under: Kate Gosselin • Larry King Live

via People Magazine.com

First there was “The Farrah,” then “The Rachel,” and now, “The Gosselin”? Jon & Kate Plus Eight’s famous mom is known almost as much for her amped up, asymmetrical hairdo as her brood of eight kids and recent marital scandals.

And when the PEOPLE cover-star sat down with Entertainment Weekly recently to talk about living in a fishbowl, she also dished on her distinctive do. While the reality star doesn’t reveal whether she’s actually named the look, she does respond, “It’s my attitude! Everybody wants it. It’s work.” The secret to getting the style right? “I have very, very thick hair, so it’s not going to work for everybody. I’ve seen people come through the book line with thin hair and [it] just won’t work. My hair stylist gets calls from all across the country.”

(Read More)

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And US Weekly reports this...Celebrity hairstylists, however, don't think the cut works at all.  "The style seems almost punk 1980s, which might be cool if it was 1985 and she wasn't a mother of eight," Jessica Gillen of NYC's Sally Hershberger Salon tells Usmagazine.com.

Gillen's gripe? "The back is way too short," she tells Us. "It is almost a men's clipper cut."

Gosselin would look cute with a pixie cut, but "she'd have to cut the front shorter," says Gillen. If she wanted a bob, "she'd need more length in the back."

Right now, Gosselin just looks like she "has two haircuts going on that don't blend at all," says Gillen.

(Read More)

Filed under: Kate Gosselin • Larry King Live