Mady Gosselin is looking back on the highs and lows of 2019 after a complicated year of back-and-forth between mom, Kate Gosselin and estranged father, Jon Gosselin. The Kate Plus Date star, 19, took to Instagram Wednesday to ring in the new year with a sweet snap and meaningful note about the “challenging” and “refreshing” year.
View this post on Instagram
“2019: you were a bittersweet, stressful, challenging, crazy year,” she began. “But you were also refreshing, wonderful, unpredictable & full of achievements i’m so proud of. it’s all about balance, i guess [smiley face emoticon] happy new year!! here’s to 2020 being cooler & crazier.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Thing have definitely been complicated as of late in the Gosselin family as dad Jon took custody of son Collin and daughter Hannah, both 15, slamming ex Kate in the media after the gag order from their 2009 divorce expired and accusing her of child abuse. In November, Jon even went on The Dr. Oz Show to claim his ex had been “warped” by fame to the detriment of their eight children.
“Fame’s different only because fameโฆ things are given to you,” Jon said at the time. “You’re held to a higher standard. You’re put on a pedestalโฆ the attention, it’s almost like a drug, like an addiction. And once you have that, and that lifestyle, you can see certain tendencies in people. It justโฆ it feeds and feeds and feeds.”
“I didn’t understand, at first, why but now I understand why,” Jon explained of his ex’s desire to remain on TV despite the drama surrounding Jon & Kate Plus 8. “All she wanted was legal custody to film my kids to sustain her lifestyle and their lifestyle. It gets all warped. That’s fame though. It just twists things around.”
Things are definitely still tense between Mady and her father, which she explained in a 2018 interview with PEOPLE.
“He makes it seem like we’re being kept from him, which is insane,” Mady said at the time of her father. “He should maybe spend some time thinking about why we don’t want to see him, and maybe realize that if he ever does want a relationship with us, talking about us on TV is not the way to make that happen.”
“He doesn’t even know us,” she added. “How can he dare to talk about us?”
Photo credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images