Update!

Kate Gosselin: Jon Took the Money and Ran

Octomom discusses the reality-TV family's finances and any chance of future peace on the Today show

By Breanne L. Heldman Oct 05, 2009 2:47 PMTags

The family as a whole may have made major bucks from their hit TLC show, but Kate Gosselin is currently living hand-to-mouth.

Reports that Jon Gosselin removed $230,000 from the family's joint bank account and leaving her with only $1,000 are true, she tells Meredith Vieira on the Today show this morning.

"I have a stack of bills in my purse I can't drop in the mail," she says, choking up. "The last thing I wanted was to do this show and end up not being able to pay our bills."

Given all the drama, the star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 admits, "Every morning, I don't know what I'm going to wake up to…[Jon] has gone way far off the trail."

The money melodrama started at the very beginning of the reality-TV couple's split.

Their separation agreement won't allow either of them to withdraw money from the joint "liquid money" account without mutual authorization. Kate, however, is authorized to write checks for the family's expenses.

Kate admits for the first time that she feared Jon might do something like this, and removed $100,000 from the account earlier in the divorce process.

"At some point, I removed it to keep it safe on the suggestion of my lawyer but needed to put it back, according to the arbitrator," she says. "I did that."

She claims she only did this because Jon had already removed funds from the account just before the divorce was filed, and she was afraid.

"I had taken $100,000 and put it aside safely so I could buy my kids food if this occurred," she says. "I was afraid. He was literally buying erratic purchases, randomly purchasing things. The last thing I wanted was to do this show and end up not being able to pay my bills."

When Kate came forward about it, the pair split the change 50/50, and she used it to pay bills, while he "did whatever with it."

In the meantime, Jon's attorney claims he took money he was entitled to and expects to be awarded even more in the future.

"[Jon] has not withdrawn any money for his own remuneration, with the exception of the past several months wherein he believes he only withdrew approximately $170,000," Mark J. Heller says in a statement. "It is not unlikely…that Jon will be awarded substantial additional funds."

In response, Kate says, "It's wonderful to say he'll be awarded significant funds. However, there are not significant funds for him to be awarded. I don't care that he feels he needs to be awarded this. When you've left your children and their mother unable to pay for the roof above their head, it is not acceptable."

As for Jon's claims that the eight kids no longer wish to participate in the reality show, Kate claims the children were "wailing and sobbing" not to be seeing the crew since last week's filming halt.

The octomom feels the show needs to go on, and not just because the income helps keep the family afloat.

"It's something that the kids and I are still enjoying," she says. "The opportunities that they've been provided—I don't say that lightly—we were supposed to be in New York now to see the Statue of Liberty and the kids are having trouble understanding why they're not here and why they're not doing that.

"I don't feel like it's time to end it. If we are all enjoying it, I just feel like Kate Plus 8 going on, the nine of us who want to continue it, should be able to do it."

Jon, however, does have the power to end the show for good.

"He can do it, because TLC has always said if one of us didn't want it to happen anymore, and obviously they're not going to stand in his way. Jon is a parent. He does have that right to say that, but I wish he would think harder about it because it has ended our income and our paychecks and our opportunities."

Despite both parents' claims for desires of peace, Kate doesn't see it as imminent. Nor the three-month delay in the divorce proceedings.

"I do not believe there will be any 90-day stalling of this process," she tells Vieira. "Peace is really far away, and I just have to say again, I never wanted to be sitting here and discussing details. I think in the end, actions speak louder than words…I know that my actions are solely for the kids, to better the kids. I have a lot of peace about this because I know in the end, my actions are appropriate, well thought out and with the kids in mind."

We have to ask, though—if Kate's in New York chatting up the Today show and Jon's in Los Angeles making milkshakes, who is with the eight?

(Originally published on Oct. 5, 2009, at 6:22 a.m. PT)

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The Reality of Jon & Kate Plus 8 is just getting harder and harder to look at, no?