TLC Suing Jon Gosselin

TLC has filed a lawsuit against Jon Gosselin for allegedly breaching his contract as a star of Jon and Kate Plus 8. The lawsuit alleges that Gosselin has failed to meet his obligations as an exclusive employee of the network, while appearing on rival networks’ programs for pay and making unauthorized public disclosures about the show. The suit is seeking unspecified compensatory damages and demanding he return income gained as a result of his breaches of the agreement, as well as to refrain from future violations of his contractual agreement.

Gosselin has starred since 2007 on the weekly Jon and Kate Plus 8, a ratings hit for the network that has been rocked in recent months by marital turmoil as Gosselin and his wife, Kate, feuded, then filed for divorce.

“The network has been trying privately and patiently for months to get Jon to honor the contract he signed and to comply with his obligations relating to public appearances and statements,” said TLC in a statement on Friday. “Those efforts have been unsuccessful.”

Gosselin’s lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, said he had not yet read the filing and had no immediate comment.

The lawsuit says that, in June, in recognition of “the Gosselins’ difficult personal circumstances, TLC asked both parents to refrain from making public statements about each other, the divorce, or the program, and negotiated an agreed ‘cooling off’ period with respect to media communications” for 45 days.

Nonetheless, the suit alleges that Gosselin “in violation of his contractual exclusivity” to his own show, “entered a lucrative arrangement to appear regularly on Entertainment Tonight and its companion show, The Insider, to discuss his family and the problems he was having with Mrs. Gosselin, and he routinely sold photographic rights to various media outlets.” The lawsuit also claims that on September 18, TLC requested that Jon Gosselin be present for filming six days hence. He didn’t respond to the request, and no filming took place on September 24, the lawsuit says.

In light of Gosselin’s alleged “erratic public behavior, unprofessional conduct and serial disregard for his contractual obligations,” TLC on September 29 announced the program would be relaunched in November as Kate Plus Eight, with Jon Gosselin taking a back seat role to single mother Kate and the eight kids. The lawsuit claims that he responded with a request to be released from his exclusive arrangement to pursue other paying opportunities while continuing to be compensated by TLC. When TLC declined to comply with such a release, Gosselin notified TLC that he would attempt to bar TLC’s access to the family property and filming of his children, the suit says, “on the grounds that it is purportedly detrimental to the children.”

A few days later, Gosselin told CNN’s Larry King Live that it’s “not healthy” for his kids to continue appearing on the TLC reality show. He said he had had “an epiphany one day” and realized his 5-year-old sextuplets and 9-year-old twins shouldn’t be filmed at the family’s Pennsylvania home while their parents are going through a divorce.

TLC has since granted a judge’s request that filming of the eight children be suspended.

TLC spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg said that, while both Kate and Jon Gosselin remain under exclusive contract to the network, the show’s longtime future remains in question.T