Our third annual recap of Kate's worst moments of the year is here. Last year it was difficult to narrow it down to only 10. This year, it was an even greater challenge. Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions. There were so many dirty deeds they could fill an encyclopedia, but we've attempted our Cliff Note's version here. Enjoy!
10. Around the World in 80 Days, or How to Be a Truly Terrible Parent.
9. One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong! Cher, Madonna, Sting, KATE.
Sweet and generous Em Tanner, a designer from Tennessee, has grifted Kate untold amounts of merchandise through the years, especially when the children were toddlers. (Remember those shirts numbered 1-8? Those were Em's.) When a sheeple this year alerted Kate that Em was calling one of her calendars "Kate's Calendar," Kate threw a fit. Mind you, not Kate Gosselin's Calendar, not Kate Plus 8's Calendar. Just Kate's calendar! (No where on the calendar's sale page did Em even mention the Gosselins or the show.) We must have missed when Kate copyrighted the name Kate. Kate Middleton might have something to say about that one. Kate's immature rampage about the incident on Twitter (why not just call Em privately, or contact a lawyer?), prompted Em to tweet back surprise at why she was being "badmouthed so randomly," as well as this well-deserved doosey, "I'm so sorry you lost your way, I really am." Shockingly, Kate later actually admitted that she started it, and that she didn't mean to cause a war. Em Tanner: 1, Kate the Great: 0.
8. Dance With the Devil
Poor Tony Dovolani can't get through an interview these days without someone asking him, notwithstanding all the incredible divas he has been paired with over the past decade, how in the world he put up with Kate Gosselin. I guess no one has been satisfied with his answers yet, LOL. It was no different on Anderson Cooper last spring when Tony told the CNN reporter "there was a lot of therapy involved" after being partnered with Kate. Ha! What was clearly just a joke was as serious as the Cuban Missile Crisis to Kate (if she knows what that is), who decided to pen an entire diatribe responding to the comment, oddly, on Coupon Cabin instead of her own web site's blog! Huh? Is DWTS offering coupons for tap shoes now? Why was that even there? we all wanted to know. Anyway, Kate told Tony it was a shame his remembrance of their time was only negative (he never said that, Kate) and challenged Anderson to go on Dancing With the Stars, where she would be watching front row. He wouldn't lower himself. The best part of all? Not a word in response to this craziness from Anderson or Tony. It was like she was talking to a brick wall. Baw-haha! Coupon Cabin later swiffered that post and all the others when they fired her. Oops, shoulda put it on your own blog for posterity. She's bananas.
7. Running on crazy
Kate had spent a lot of effort trying to convince us the kids just love, love running, but her "Catfish" facade of a life was never more apparent when she dragged the kids up to Connecticut to run a race with her and several other schoolchildren (who, unlike the Gosselins, had been working very hard together to prepare for the event). One of the girls was even crying as Steve encouraged her along. We also learned a lot about her serious lack of boundaries when she let one of the kids sit on the lap of a fan, and stranger. Run, crazy, run, but leave the kids out of it.
6. Ah yes, divorce. From the Latin word for to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.
This year marked the third anniversary of Jon and Kate's divorce, but you would think it only happened three days ago the way Kate couldn't stop ragging on Jon this year. There were many sour moments where she threw the children's beloved father under the bus, including when she claimed that she relieved him of child support obligations out of the goodness of her heart (she didn't count on anyone knowing that's not possible under Pennsylvania law once an order has been put in place), told everyone that the kids preferred to be with her over the Christmas holidays, and even just let her sheeple believe that Jon couldn't pay his utility bills when she announced that his power was off (even though news reports revealed thousands were without power also in his area). One of the worst was when she told a sympathetic Dr. Drew that Jon was "trying" to be a good dad. The....f&%$ ??? Of course nothing can top her infamous mediocre comment from the year before, but she sure tried. Meanwhile over at Jon's, a few discreetly tweeted photos reveal happy, calm, relaxed kids. Good to know.
This fall, Jon's girlfriend posted a few sweet photos of the sextuplets with her adorable pit bull, and however misguided, it set Kate off into yet another unnecessary public twitter war. Why, because the children have never looked more at peace? Figures. She retweeted several negative articles about pit bulls and implied that her request the children not be around the dog was ignored. Liz snapped right back that Kate rolled her window up in Liz's face. Forget dogs, where are the cats?! Meeow! Kate's accusations were so over the top, she drew criticism from Animal Planet's Pitbulls and Parolees for spreading misinformation about the "nanny dog" breed and contributing to their unjustified reputation. What takes the bone is that Kate owns a German Shepherd herself, also listed on many "dangerous breeds" dog lists! Woof.
Kate's tweeted too many embarrassing photos of the kids this year, but one of the creepiest was a revealing photo of Mady's legs in Kate's hooker heels. The fact that Kate failed to realize that no matter how innocent her intentions were, a good parent has to think about others who may be using the photos for less-than innocent purposes, spoke to exactly how screwed up her noggin is. We weren't the only ones. This one attracted backlash from around the web, including from popular Mommyish bloggers. As Eve Vawter put it, "Kate Gosselin didn’t need to post it, but I suppose it can also be argued that Kate Gosselin uses any excuse to exploit any of her eight children for attention and publicity, whether good or bad, to feed her gaping maw of a fame hole." Kate learned absolutely nothing from Bill Blankinship's arrest and subsequent conviction this year. #ParentingFail
3. Stop Child Abuse.
The truth is, numerous non-fans have quietly speculated for years there might be child abuse going on in the Gosselin home, and even an ex-staffer tried to come forward in 2009 about some disturbing things they saw and gave a story to the tabloids anonymously, but without proof, it's been just that, quiet speculation. However photog Robert Hoffman was finally able to prove it this year after discovering some old computer files of Kate's that contained her journals and publishing them in a book. Among many disturbing entries, Kate writes that she whipped Collin into his crib and pulled him by the hair. The information Robert uncovered in his research also suggests that Kate is bipolar, and was physically and sexually abused as a child. For those of us with backgrounds in this area, it sure made a lot of sense. Hoffman's book was perhaps the most chilling moment not just of this year, but since this family first came across our radar.
2. Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic.
We feel like a white squall hit us after this one. WTF! Okay, so, the year kicked off to a hysterical start with Kate trying to organize a fan cruise to the Caribbean this summer during the height of hurricane season, and with the twins, like she were actually a real celeb. The whole thing was so vague and unaffordable, not to mention exploitive, it had white flags of doom written all over it from the very start. It got all the weirder when it became clear that Cindy, a cruise rep running the show, well, basically was a trust fund baby idiot who hadn't the first clue what she was doing. She enlisted the help of some of the creepiest sheeple to "vet" potential cruise goers, something even our most seasoned cruise-goers here had never seen done in their entire vacationing lives (I guess they were afraid a non-fan would sign up and, I don't know, maybe report back here??? The horror!). Only, the vetting was actually scaring the beJesus out of legitimate fans who just wanted to have a nice time with their families. Cindy would also send out mass emails to anyone interested and forget to BCC, thereby exposing everyone's real names and e-mails to each other, and she would talk publicly about her clients, a huge no-no. As we oh-so-accurately predicted, Kate cancelled the whole thing and jumped ship in May just before final payments were due, muttering something about not enough people had signed up, and promising to try to meet up and treat cruise goers to a lunch before they embarked. Think that ever happened? Take a guess. This whole thing was so bizarre you would think hands down it should make number one on our list, right? Think again. She did something even worse.
Before we get to number one, once again this year there were so many bad deeds they couldn't possibly all fit into ten, nor could they all fit into the runner's up list either! (We practically need a runner's up list to the runner's up list) But here are a few that didn't make the top 10.
- Kate's year saw her picking more Twitter battles than if she were to suit up in Troy. When Kate called out the Dance Moms, saying they were "horrible" and she would never "ever" do that to her own kids, star Melissa Ziegler couldn't believe the hypocrisy. Yeah, neither could we. Ziegler tweeted back that she's from the same part of PA as Kate and has always supported her and her show. We're guessing this was her last turn with Kate. Kate also picked another bizarre and unnecessary Twitter war with a reporter at the Red Cross Gala this year. This one went on for pages before she finally gave up. Bloody hell.
- Kate never stopped accepting gifts from fans and even encouraged it, even in the wake of terrible tragedies like Hurricane Sandy and the shootings in Newtown. Her selfishness and sense of entitlement is astounding, and is being passed right on down to the kids.
- Kate tried to pretend she was still fighting traffic during the president debates, but Bravo's Andy Cohen actually called her out for the lying compulsive liar that she is and told us all he saw her watching The Real Housewives, actually. That was classic. And typical. Voting records revealed Kate never bothered to change her polling place when she moved, what was it, four years ago?
- Kate's made many inappropriate comments about body weight and exercise over the years, encouraging unhealthy preoccupations with appearance in her young impressionable fans, but the worst was when she tweeted a fan "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." Ugh.
- Hide the bunny. Kate's manic posts on Easter were just odd, and creepy.
- We couldn't believe our ears when we heard Kate talking about periods and bra shopping with the twins. We used to joke that's what would be exploited next, only Kate was for real. We wish there were room for this one in the top 10.
And now, the long awaited worst moment of the year....
1. Coupon Crapin
It was a really tough call this year between whether the cruise cancellation or the Coupon Cabin firing was Kate's worst moment of the year. Ultimately, Coupon Cabin just barely edged out the cruise, due to one generous CEO named Scott. Instead of just quietly letting her go, Scott decided to put it all out there in a brief but succinct letter. In it, he laid out exactly why he could no longer have her on his team, from her lack of authenticity, to her utter inability to fit in with everyone else, to her entourage, to her polarizing posts. The letter so aptly described the joke of a celebrity we've all for so long tried to explain she is, it was sort of our own personal vindication. Or if you like, "We told you so, suckers!" To this day, it's fun to speculate what in the world she did this time that would prompt Scott to fire off such a scathing Dear John. The world may never know. Here it is again:
A Letter from CouponCabin CEO Scott Kluth
To all our Kate blog readers:
Some nine-plus years ago, I started CouponCabin with the thought of creating a single website that had all the best coupons… no gimmicks, no fluff, just a site that was easy to use and that had great deals. Along the way, we’ve helped our users collectively save hundreds of millions of dollars.
A series of recent events have made it clear to me that Kate Gosselin and her contributions do not align with the authenticity which we set out to build almost a decade ago, and that Ms. Gosselin is simply not a good fit with the wonderful team and culture at CouponCabin.
It’s with this that I am writing to inform you of our decision to discontinue Ms. Gosselin’s feature blog on CouponCabin.com. Ms. Gosselin’s contributions garnered both positive attention and criticism, but as always, I respect and appreciate your candid opinions, which often encourage us not to lose sight of our mission — to help YOU save money.
We wish Kate, her family and her support staff all the best.
Scott Kluth
Founder and CEO of CouponCabin.com
3. Tony finally wins Dancing With the Stars! May his prize be no one ever asks him about Kate again.
2. No more child exploitation. Rep. Murt's bill, inspired by disturbing information he heard from us and others about working conditions on the Gosselins' set, was signed into law.
1. YOU! Yes, You. And you, and you, and you. The people on this blog have always been close, but what's been really cool about this year is to watch this blog really progress into a true community. Comments on posts increased dramatically this year (some posts had over 1,000 after only a few days!) as it became more of a porch gathering every day and sometimes late into the night. We threw a few virtual parties and had a blast, screened some fantastic quality reality T.V. like The Farmer's Wife and The Dust Bowl, and we even invented our own drink. We hit 8 million hits this year and surpassed 9 million just this week. So bottoms up, here's a round of Rumspringas on us. Happy New Year, everyone.
