The Gosselin sextuplets celebrated their 16th birthday on Sunday but it was a bittersweet day for the broken family. Parents, Jon and Kate Gosselin, have been locked in a custody battle for Aaden, Joel, Alexis, and Leah Gosselin, who live with their mother, and Hannah and Collin, who live with their father.
Jon highlighted this in a birthday message to the teens on social media.
"Happy 16th Birthday to Hannah & Collin!!! I miss you Leah, Joel, Alexis and Aaden I hope your 16th Birthday is just as memorable!!! Love, Dad," he wrote in an Instagram post.
Kate meanwhile offered a glimpse into how they were celebrating the sextuplets' birthday with a snapshot of a box of Hershey's Kisses cereal.
"Happy 16th Birthday to my half a dozen 'Hershey Kisses', as they were called at birth! I love you so much!" she captioned the photo on Instagram. "You're 6 of the sweetest things to happen to my life! Thanks for making every Mother’s Day extra memorable! They requested 'junk cereals' for their birthday lunch (?!) so I got a bit carried away, as usual, and got them 21 different kinds!"
Jon and Kate split in 2009 and have since been fighting for full-time custody over their children. Jon opened up about the battle earlier this year in an episode of the podcast ‘First Class Fatherhood.’
"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," he said, according to Entertainment Tonight. "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 custody of her."
After nine attorneys and $1.3 million in legal fees, Jon got sole custody of Collin.
"It's a long battle. I just didn't give up and I'm still not gonna give up," he continued. "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."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.