In the News

Jon and Kate Plus 8 Update

Jon hangs with girlfriend on Kate's birthday ... and more drama

-The Betty Editors

You can't turn around without seeing pictures of Jon and Kate Gosselin and their brood of eight splashed everywhere. Six weeks and running, the couple has graced the front cover of US Weekly; John's face will be plastered People's cover this week; and the world is completely fascinated by them and their misery.

There continues to be more and more fodder to feed the frenzy. Most recently, reports are that Kate was home celebrating her 34th birthday with the children while Jon was out on the town with his "girlfriend," Deanna Hummel, 23.

"I went out to Utah for, like, five days," Jon says. "I just wanted to get back out there and ride with my friends. It just happened to fall on Kate's birthday."

A source confirmed for Us Weekly that Jon and Hummel were together that night.

In other Jon and Kate news, The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has come down hard on the famous couple, saying they have "exposed and exploited" their children.

"We only see what the editors decide to put in. What is it, one-hundredth, one-thousandth of the amount of filming that's done? I don't think the audience appreciates that. The cameras don't run by themselves. What, do they have 30 or 40 people there filming these kids?" said Dr. Michael Brody of the Academy. "This is tough. Privacy, space, what you express to people. Like any family, it's a little too harsh to call it family secrets, but there are certain things that go on in the family that are not brought on outside. But in this, everything is exposed."

Brody continues, "It's not normal for an eight-year-old or a five-year-old to be working to support their family," Brody asserts. "It's not normal that they should have their privacy invaded. It is not normal that they should have to only express certain things."

There was also the news last week that Jon and Kate Plus 8 is under investigation for possibly violating child labor laws (not good news for Octomom, now is it?).

Speaking of Octomom, of course, she had to get in her twelve-millionth minute of fame by rebuking some comments Kate Gosselin made on Dr. Phil earlier this year about the hard road ahead for Nadya Suleman.

"Do I have to watch it? She reminds me of my mother," said Suleman, in an interview with Radar Online released Tuesday morning. "I have moved past my mistakes. She has her own issues. . . . She needs to stop being so judgmental and stop pulling at straws for attention."

Kate's hair has sparked plenty of attention in its own right. Called everything from a "backwards mullet" to looking "like a wolverine chewed on the back of her head", people are almost as outraged by her (hideous if you ask us) hair as they are by the infidelity. Check out this slideshow of what stars like Angelina Jolie would look like with the Kate-do.

Of course, the show's ratings are soaring as high as the back of Kate's hair - almost 10 million people tuned into the season's première, and there's talk of an Emmy.

No one, however, can think that the price they're paying is worth any of it. For all the scintillating gossip they're providing, it's still the children for whom we have nothing but sympathy, and that they're stuck in the middle of such an ugly, public mess is a heartbreaking outrage.