'I just didn't give up and I'm still not gonna give up.'
Jon Gosselin is opening up about his ongoing custody battle with his ex-wife, Kate Gosselin.
The 42-year-old father of eight appeared on a recent episode of the podcast First Class Fatherhood, and discussed his children's current living situation and relationships with each other. Jon and Kate, who called it quits in 2009, share 19-year-old twins Cara and Madelyn, and 15-year-old sextuplets Leah, Collin, Joel, Alexis, Hannah, and Aaden.
"I've been going to court for 12 years, so it's not an easy battle. I had shared custody, I lost some kids, I had joint legal, I lost legal, I got legal back," Jon said. "... When Hannah was 12 years old she wanted to live with me, so then I had to go get legal again, and then I got shared custody. And then, all of a sudden now, I got primary of her."
"I've been through nine attorneys. I've probably spent $1.3 million in court, back and forth with everything else," he continued. "And then I got sole custody of Collin."
While Hannah and Collin are currently living under Jon's roof, he said "there could be more [kids] that come" to live with him, because he and Kate leave custody decisions up to their children.
"It's a long battle. I just didn't give up and I'm still not gonna give up... I pretty much go to court every month over some custody dispute or something like that. It's getting better now that the kids are getting older," he said. "So what my attorneys and hers decided is [that] custody is left up to my children. So, if they decide to go live with mom or they decide to live with dad, it's up to them."
"Now we do have a guardian ad litem, so it's like having a third parent," he added. "So if there is a dispute between mom and dad, they can always call the guardian ad litem and she is a representative of the court and the judge, so she can make a better decision... which has changed everything."
With many of the siblings being separated, Jon described their relationship with each other as "very tumultuous."
"There's no contact between Collin and his other siblings. There's contact between Hannah and the other siblings," he explained. "So, the problem right now is we have parent alienation and we have sibling alienation. So with the guardian ad litem, she's trying to alleviate that."
"And I'm trying to get family therapy through Collin and Hannah's therapist, so that therapist can talk to the other siblings and try to find some common ground, because I think it's really important," Jon added. "... They're going to be 18 in two years, so it's going to be quite difficult."
As the sextuplets get older, though, Jon is hoping that they'll find it easier to reach out to each other.
"As soon as my two kids that live with me drive, they have every right to go drive to their siblings' school, pick the kids up, and Kate can't stop them," he said. "I'm hoping that will break down a lot of tension between siblings."
Jon's sit-down came months after he gave a shocking interview to DailyMailTV, during which Jon called Kate a "militant" mother and claimed that some of their "children have suffered abuse" from her. Collin and Hannah, he alleged, suffer from PTSD.
Jon also claimed that Kate has "poisoned my children's minds against me," adding that he and his ex "don't even talk to each other."
"I have watched my children suffer and I have not been able to say a word," he said, referencing a gag order from their 2009 divorce. "It's not about me, I don't give a s**t, I'm like whatever, I'll just go to work, you know? But my kids have suffered so much. Who's going to defend them?"
ET previously reached out to Kate for comment.
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