KATE GOSSELIN: HOW SHE FOOLED THE WORLD - THE RISE AND FALL OF A REALITY TV QUEEN (31 page)

“SPA-ING”

In
an email from July 31, 2008, Wendy Douglas of Discovery gave everyone a friendly reminder that their weekly call was scheduled for 2:00 PM the next day. But Kate had other plans. She decided to skip the weekly phone meeting with Discovery – you know, the company that was paying her millions of dollars – to go to the spa instead. She said that she “may or may not be able to be on this call today” because she was going to be “spa-ing….for some wonderful stress relief!” She assured Wendy that Jon would be on the call.

T-SHIRT LINE

On top of everything else, a new Gosselin T-Shirt line
was being designed. Julie May wrote to Jon and Kate to tell them “Good news—they are getting a T-shirt line going!” She sent them a first set of designs for their approval and comments. Julie told them that some of the designs were fun and good in her “humble” opinion, but there were some she thought they should nix for one reason or another. She asked Kate and Jon to take a look because she wanted to get them feedback as soon as possible because they needed to get revisions done by the end of the week.

KMART HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN

On September 15, 2008, Kate signed a contract to participate in a holiday campaign for Kmart.
The Gosselins were paid $158,000 for up to 24 hours of “work.”

FREE
HOME FURNISHINGS

When the Gosselins moved into their new million-dollar home in October 2008, you might have noticed that it was devoid of furniture for several weeks (episodes). There is a reason for that. Discovery was still working on getting a deal in place with Ethan Allen, to film Jon and Kate picking out furniture. Of course, anyone watching the episode would naturally think that the Gosselins were actually at the furniture stores buying their furniture with their own money, and the cameras just happened to be along that day filming them living their lives.

On September 23, 2008, a letter was sent to formalize an agreement between Jon and Kate
, and Chandler Ehrlich LLC on behalf of Lane Home Furnishings, for Jon and Kate to serve as “celebrities for Lane Home Furnishings Home Theater Initiative from October 2008-October 2009.” Here are some specifics from the agreement with Lane:


      
Jon and Kate would be paid a fee of $30,000 ($15,000 due at signing and $15,000 due when the video shoot is completed).

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Jon and Kate would receive up to $30,000 (msrp) in Lane Furniture (which was to be delivered after they moved into their new home).

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Lane agreed to pay taxes on the furniture (including paying the Gosselins for any other taxes that would be due as a result of Lane providing furniture. Lane also agreed to provide a gross up payment to Jon and Kate to cover these taxes and any taxes due that would result from 1099).

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Jon and Kate would provide a high-quality picture of themselves together to be used inside the truck only and for Market public relations activities. Jon and Kate would also provide a high-quality family picture with the children for use inside the truck only (an 11x14 photo to be displayed above the truck sofa).

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Jon and Kate would have approval over all usage of their name/likeness and video usage.

Julie May emailed Jon and Kate to let them know she had talked to “Laura” at Lane, and Laura said she “LOVED” meeting them and was really happy with the film footage. Julie told Jon and Kate that Laura was going to send their second check out that week.

Julie asked them to
get her the name and city of the furniture store they had in mind to go, and she would get the information to Laura so she could call the store and set up the “shopping spree ‘credit’!” Julie told them to let her know if they needed her to get store options.

Julie also explained that
Laura would take some photos of the “new collection” when she saw it in about 2 weeks, and said it was up to them if they wanted to wait on that. Julie said, “You may want to shop now and then pick up some more pieces down the line? Whatever works best for you!”

In an email dated November 13, 2008, Wendy Douglas of Discovery informed Jon and Kate that they were working hard on a plan for the “Ethan Allan” shoot, and to please give her possible dates to go to the Ethan Allan store at King of Prussia and a date for a consultant to go to their house to give them advice for furniture. She stated that once they had dates, they could confirm the shoot and “get you some furniture!!! Gorgeous furniture from Ethan Allan!”

THE BOOK SERIES

In their ongoing and unrelenting efforts to squeeze every last drop of usefulness out of the kids, Kate and Julie May tried to pimp out Mady and Cara, two 8-year-old girls, to write a SERIES of children’s books. They had this “right” built into an amended Discovery contract.” Julie May sent the amendment that would give Cara and Mady the right to do children’s books (including any sequels, which could be a series) to Kate on December 26, 2008. Julie told Kate if she could please sign, scan and email, she would get the documents back for signature and set up the “Cara/Mady project” in early 2009.

THE GOSSELIN GAME

There had been talk about exploi
ting the Gosselin children in a new and exciting way by developing an iPhone game about them. This is a partial description of the game.

Jon & Kate Plus 8
Game

In the game, the object
is to make your way through the day while keeping all 8 of the kids entertained, fed, and organized until bed time so you can finally get some rest.

The game
would start with the player taking on the roll of Kate on Monday morning.   The player needs to get through 7 day/night cycles to win the games first level.   Each level will not only be separated by days, but each day will also be separated in sections like breakfast, lunch and dinner time, with bedtime being the goal the player needs to reach each day.

Week one is about basic daily life in the Gosselin house, with getting the twins ready for school and getting the sextuplets awake and ready for breakfast and to start their day. Each of the Gosselin kids will have their own timer, where they will get antsy, start crying and even have a full blown tantrum if they’re left alone for too long without getting what they need.

There will also be special actions that will have to be managed or prepared for, i.e. getting the children ready to go to the park, go to school or be picked up by the nanny, or hooking up a new television for the children to watch.

Jon and Kate will act as a tag team, where on alternate days the player (either Jon or Kate) will only be able to get the others help for a limited amount of time.  When both of them are taking care of the kids, the player gets a time
bonus, as there will be less running around to do.

Kate could
barely contain her excitement over the possibility of this game. She exclaimed, “sounds fun! Do it!!!!” to Julie May and Jon.

“All mine. All mine as far as the eye can see.”

–
Kate Gosselin

I could write page after page about Kate asking for and getting everything for free, but my words would be written off by Kate and Discovery as more lies. So instead of simply listing and describing all the freebies that were showered upon Kate and the Gosselins, I will provide specific details straight from the sources so you don’t have to take my word for it.

This is my reporting entry for
U
S
Weekly
detailing just one occurrence of Kate expecting and demanding goods for free. Her words and actions paint a very clear picture of how she views herself.

A clerk at a local department store had an amusing experience with ‘Kate the celebrity’ as she put it to me in 2009. She was working the makeup counter and Kate was there for almost an hour testing products and asking for free samples of everything. Then, when the clerk totaled up her bill, Kate demanded to see the store manager to ask why she was being charged so much.  When the manager told Kate that that’s what the items cost, Kate laughed and told them that she was Kate Gosselin and she’s on television and she’s not used to paying for things.