Jon Gosselin, who is cast for the upcoming season of Couples Therapy on VH1, played the ol’ “hate on Kate” card to drum up a little attention for himself and possibly the show in a recent interview. In addition, the 36-year-old parsed out a bit of his worldly wisdom in regards to finding oneself and the brand that is “Jon Gosselin.”
Here are some highlights from a great piece by Simon van Zuylen-Wood for Philadelphia Magazine on the former reality star turned maître d’ and cabin dweller:
Jon’s thoughts on Twitter:
“I deleted it last year. Best thing I ever did. I can disappear. Nobody knows where I am. She [Kate] tweets everything. To the world, all about my children. I think it’s disgusting and awful. They can’t even have a normal life.”
Jon in a McDonald’s parking lot ranting about Kate:
“Everyone thinks I’m out to get Kate. I don’t give a f**k! What would I get out of it? Everyone knows she’s an a**hole, you know what I mean? I don’t have to—she’s proven that! Kate wants to still be on television. She’s now digging into the past, because that’s what sells. Too late, honey. No one gives a f**k, really.”
Jon at the restaurant where he works on his “brand” and cross-marketing:
“I started to think about my brand. I’m still technically famous. How can you get people in the door? It’s not the entertainment industry, but it’s the food industry. Cross-branding marketing right there. The main thing the tabloids did was separate me from my brand. My brand was Jon & Kate Plus 8. Now that I’m divorced? My new brand, because of the tabloids, is Jon Gosselin.”
Jon on educating himself while “Middle America” just watches TV:
“This is Middle America. This is not the city. There’s New York and Philadelphia and there’s L.A. But Middle America’s all in between! That’s the viewing population! Those people live. That’s what they do. You and I go out, we read, we educate ourselves, we do a lot of stuff. … They watch TV. I don’t even have a TV.”
Jon on returning to the woods to figure out sh*t:
“It’s called: going into the woods,. Like, I always look at it like, if you’re in the woods, you take a path out of the woods. It doesn’t work? You come back in the woods, ’cause you’re comfortable. And then you figure out your sh*t—out of the woods again. Everyone does it. CEOs lose their jobs, they go back in the woods, they think they hit rock bottom because their lifestyle changed. But in actuality, they go and invent sh*t. Like Steve Jobs. Or Bill Gates, or, you know what I mean? Recession breeds innovation. So I just start thinking what I can do.”
Jon defending his decision to do Couples Therapy while criticizing his wife for returning to TV:
“I didn’t put out an open bid—this is something that just popped up. We [he and girlfriend Liz] needed the therapy for our relationship. We really couldn’t afford therapy. And it’s free therapy. I’m just a normal person. Let’s not use ‘normal’ anymore. Let’s use ‘ordinary.’ I’m a f**kin’ tax-paying, law-abiding citizen of Pennsylvania. That just happened to be on TV for five years. You know what I mean? That’s it.”
