Hailey Glassman Trying to Be Happy With Jon in a "Dirty, Dirty World"

Jon Gosselin's girlfriend says she has become "the sacrificial lamb" in the Jon & Kate Plus 8 fracas

Hailey Glassman is just "a normal 22-year-old girl." So how did she turn into "the goldfish that was put in the piranha tank"?

The admitted college-era weed smoker (it happens) exclusively tells E! News that, about five years ago, the only thing she had to say about the Jon & Kate Plus 8 star was, "Wow, you've got a lot of kids."

But now, she is really, truly in love with her family friend turned boyfriend, and she thinks there is plenty of blame to go around for her 15-plus minutes of infamy.

"Before all this, I was happy-go-lucky," Glassman said in a recent sit-down.

"I was never a follower. I was never a gossiper. I did my own thing. To be honest, this whole thing, I have lost my happiness through this all. I don't want to say the public and media stripped me of my self-esteem. But they really have. I've been the sacrificial lamb in this situation."

And don't even get her started on TLC's role in this fiasco.

"More like the lying channel," Glassman said when reminded that TLC stood for The Learning Channel. TLC didn't allow [Jon and Kate Gosselin] to come out and say their marriage was done a year ago," she said. But "no network owns what I can and cannot say."

And the gist of what she has to say is that she and Mr. Gosselin didn't hook up until after his marriage had come undone, and they went from friends to best friends to more.

"It's very carefree and fun," she said of their relationship. "We just laugh—like, our best times are when it's just me and him.

"We both enjoy just simple things in life," she said, citing their mutual love of snowboarding, watching movies, playing pool and other "normal" activities.

Having already dismissed Gosselin's rumored girlfriend No. 2, Kate Major, as being "cuckoo, cuckoo," Glassman also insists that nanny Stephanie Santoro is nothing but a nanny.

"Jon has a good heart, she has a child and he felt bad. He knows how it feels to have a child and not be able to afford, you know, so he hired her to give her a job."

As for her future with the father of eight, Glassman says her current objective is happiness for all.

"I don't like to talk in the future," she said. "I like to live in the present. As of right now, I want to be happy. I want Jon to be happy. I want every side to be happy.

"People need to realize there's two sides to every story...TLC, they're telling something but the truth is always in that fuzzy area. You can't touch it, but only the people contracted can see it, but no one can say it.

"It's a dirty, dirty world. Bamboozling, this world. I didn't know any of this would happen," Glassman added, referrering once again to the media poo-storm.

"If I wanted fame, don't you think I would be out all the time? I stay in my house. I've been staying home with my parents because I feel safe there."