Collin Gosselin Reveals He Survived Car Crash After Falling Asleep at the Wheel

Former Jon & Kate Plus 8 star Collin Gosselin is counting his blessings after a scary incident on the road. The 18-year-old, who is the son of Jon Gosselin and his ex-wife Kate Gosselin and one of the former couple’s sextuplets, recently revealed that he survived a terrifying car accident in which his vehicle flipped.

Gosselin opened up about the scary incident in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, in which he encouraged others to wear their seatbelts. According to Gosselin, he was on his way to work when he suddenly fell asleep at the wheel. The next thing he knew, he told the outlet, “car was flipped, and I’m just, like, sliding upside down across traffic.” While Gosselin survived the terrifying crash, his vehicle was not unscathed. Images he shared with the outlet showed his red car smashed, having sustained heavy damage to the front end and driver’s side, seemingly a complete loss.

Gosselin’s chat with Entertainment Tonight was a sweeping one, the former reality TV star also opening up about his relationship with his estranged mother, telling the outlet he wants “to believe it was because of TV and what being in the public eye does to a family. I think it tore us apart and it gave us less time to actually be together as a family, but more time to be in the public eye.” While Gosselin said he believes his relationship with his mother grew more distant over the course of several years, he said her decision to institutionalize him broke the relationship completely.

Kate previously revealed that her son spent time in an institution because of alleged “behavioral issues” and to learn skills for his “special needs.” However, Gosselin called the institution a “scary place,” sharing that he thinks “being in a place like that does more damage than it helps you.” Gosselin spent his 13th and 14th birthdays in an institution, during which time he “was in a dark place mentally,” before he finally got a note to his father. He said, “after being there, I didn’t have a relationship with” Kate.

Gosselin’s relationship with his estranged mother, being institutionalized, and his recent car crash has taught him plenty about life. He told ET, “I wanna say, in life, we all go through hard things. We all get knocked down. We all experience really, really difficult things, but don’t sit around and mourn and cry about it, you know. Address the situation you’re in and fix it and come out on top of it because resilience is a really important thing.”