Being on a reality show as a child would undoubtedly have an impact on anyone. For Hannah Gosselin, who is one of Jon and Kate Gosselin’s eight children, the experience wasn’t entirely bad. In many ways, her family was used to being filmed for Jon & Kate Plus 8 – and she didn’t even realize how abnormal her life was.
Hannah learned more about what life was like for other kids when she went to elementary school.
During a recent interview with Teen Vogue, Hannah, 21, spoke about what it was like growing up on reality TV. She was only a baby when she first appeared on TV, so she didn’t even realize that being filmed all the time wasn’t exactly normal until she started going to school. “That was our normal,” she told the magazine.
She still watches clips from the show.
Hannah told Teen Vogue that being “surrounded” by cameras all the time definitely had a negative impact in some ways. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all bad, though. She actually continues to watch clips from the show at times. In an unconventional way, the show has preserved some of her childhood memories, making it easy for her to go back and revisit them when she wants to.
Some memories, however, are difficult to revisit.
Of course, because the cameras were always around, they also captured some of the family’s more negative experiences, including arguments between Hannah’s parents, Jon and Kate Gosselin, who got divorced in 2009.
Jon is now estranged from most of his children, but after the divorce, Hannah and brother Collin Gosselin chose to live with him. Hannah has said she’s still in contact with her mother in spite of this decision. She told Teen Vogue that it’s difficult to watch some of the tense interactions between her parents when she rewatches their reality show.
“It’s hard to go back and watch my parents argue,” she shared. She believes that although the show managed to bring her and her siblings “closer to each other,” it actually did the opposite for her parents.
Hannah recently celebrated her 21st birthday with her dad and his fiancée.
Now that her reality TV days are behind her, Hannah’s mom appears to try to stay out of the spotlight – for the most part. In the past year, Kate has only posted on Instagram twice. Both of her most recent posts were birthday celebration posts for her sextuplets. Kate excluded Hannah and Collin from both posts, though she technically mentioned all six of the sextuplets in this year’s birthday post.
“And just like that, they turned 21! Happy Birthday to my 6! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ #GosselinSextuplets,” Kate wrote on May 10, 2025. However, Hannah and Collin were not in any of the photos she shared.
On his Instagram Stories, Jon shared a boomerang featuring espresso martinis and added a “Happy Birthday” graphic. He tagged Hannah and his fiancée, Stephanie Lebo, in the post.
In 2022, Collin spoke about how being on TV impacted his family.
Though Hannah feels that filming brought her closer to her siblings, brother Collin did not have the same experience. Collin is estranged from most of his siblings. In 2022, he spoke to Entertainment Tonight about how being on reality TV “gave [his family] less time to actually be together as a family [and] more time to be in the public eye.”
He later accused his mom of abuse and said she “isolated” him from his siblings. In 2023, on the television series Dark Side of the 2000s, Hannah said that growing up, Collin “would be separated” from his other siblings.
“He would not get to come outside and play with us,” she said at the time. “He would eat dinner at different times than us. I don’t think effort was made in the home to help him learn what behavior is acceptable and what behavior is not acceptable.”
