‘Kate Plus Date’: Kate Gosselin Photo With Bodyguard Sparks Rumors of Romance

Kate Gosselin’s search for love begins on Kate Plus Date Monday, but some of the TLC personality’s followers think she may have already found a connection in longtime bodyguard Steve Neild.

After photos surfaced of Gosselin stepping out in NYC, accompanied by Neild, long-standing rumors that the two had more than a professional relationship surfaced once again.

See the photo here.

Neild regularly appeared on Kate Plus 8, the TLC spinoff of Jon & Kate Plus 8 following the mother of eight after her divorce from husband Jon was finalized in 2009.

Jon has since spoken out about what he felt was an inappropriate relationship between Neild and his ex, saying on a past Good Morning America appearance, “I speculate, but I don’t know. When they were traveling together, I felt jealous. Here I’m Mr. Mom. And then there’s some other guy traveling with my wife.”

Kate’s new dating show debuts on TLC Monday, which she admitted she hoped would help her get back out there almost a decade after her divorce was finalized.

“I don’t know if it was conscious or subconscious. The feeling of going on dates, if you put it in one word, is vulnerable, and I’ve avoided everything that involves feeling vulnerable. And I now realize that one of those things was dating,” Kate said in a clip of the premiere episode.

“Going forward, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve changed, I’ve adapted and I’ve grown up a lot. I’ve become much more self-aware. And almost 10 years later, my kids are all but grown up. So, I’m dating again — finally,” she added.

“Mr. Right has not, you know, ding dong rung my doorbell,” she added of using the help of matchmaking experts to find a connection. “To me it’s like OK, well in natural life I’m not going to meet someone. I’m not doing the internet dating thing — that scares the living daylights out of me,” she admitted. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a companion. That’s such a foreign concept to me. Before I decide to grow old alone, I should probably give it a pretty decent shot of looking around for someone.”

Kate Plus Date premieres Monday, June 10 at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.

Photo credit: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Discovery