Kate: I’m still wearing wedding ring for my kids

An emotional Kate Gosselin, still wearing her wedding ring, said that she’s doing as well as can be expected in the wake of the breakup of her marriage — but still has times when she feels like a failure.

“I am as well as can be expected. I’m determined to hang in there,” Gosselin told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira in her first interview since she and her husband, Jon, confirmed that they were getting a divorce. “What life hands me, I’m going to do. My focus still is the health and well-being of my children as well as myself.”

Vieira asked her if part of her still loves Jon.

“When I think back to the Jon that I knew, yes,” Gosselin replied haltingly.

‘A lot of failure’
Gosselin broke down, brushing away tears with a tissue, when Vieira noted that she was still wearing her wedding ring. “Why?” Vieira asked.

“For them,” Gosselin said with difficulty, in reference to her eight children. “I don’t want to upset them.”

Vieira asked her about a published statement in which she said she sometimes feels like a failure.

“I wake up and I do feel a lot of failure,” Gosselin acknowledged. “This is not what any mother sets out for their children. It’s necessary. It has to take place. I think I’ve turned the focus on myself. I want my children to see a mother who’s committed to her children, who’s determined, who has integrity and perseverance and never gives up. Everything I’ve done for them is out of love.”

The mother of the twins and sextuplets who have become a star franchise on TLC through the show “Jon & Kate Plus 8” answered a broad range of questions, many of them deeply personal and visibly difficult for her to address. She denied rumors that she had an affair with her bodyguard; said she neither purchased nor ever shopped for a condo or apartment; and lashed out at her brother, 32-year-old Kevin Kreider, and his wife, Jodi, for profiting by telling stories that she said aren’t true. She also denied that the show had anything to do with the collapse of the marriage and said that her children are doing just fine despite all the turmoil.

“Every morning I wake up and it’s a new rumor,” Gosselin said of the ubiquitous tabloid stories about her and her family.

‘There is no affair’
One had her having an affair with her chief of security, Steve Neild. In reality, she said, she is merely a close friend of Neild, his wife and their family.

“There is no affair. There never has been an affair,” Gosselin told Vieira. “We are very, very good friends with him, his wife and his family. They are huge social support. It’s just another crazy rumor. It sells tabloids.”

After she visited the Neilds in Maryland, rumors surfaced that she had purchased an apartment in their building.

“There is no condo. There is no apartment. No one ever looked for one. Nobody ever bought one,” Gosselin said emphatically.

If she did not buy a condo, Vieira asked, where does she go when it is Jon’s turn to stay with the children at the Pennsylvania home they bought when things were better?

“To be very honest, I’m in hiding from the paparazzi,” Gosselin said, refusing to go into more detail.

She also said she was deeply hurt when her brother, Kreider, began telling stories to tabloids about her marriage, alleged affairs and her parenting skills, which have been called into question.

“That’s probably one of the most hurtful things in all of this, when family turns on you and makes up lies and makes allegations and makes tens of thousands of dollars for doing it,” Gosselin told Vieira. “This has become a business for them. It’s a huge source of income for them to do this. It’s almost too hurtful for words. This is a brother I was very, very close to.”

(source)