Hailey Glassman is finally telling her side of the story that tabloids turned into a punchline nearly two decades ago. On Tuesday’s episode of RHONY, she told castmate Jessel Taank that she and Jon Gosselin started dating after his separation from Kate, but before the public knew about it. That gap is the whole problem. When the news broke, the timeline made it look like a cheating scandal, and the tabloids handed her a nickname she couldn’t shake:“Home-wrecking Hailey.”
The details are almost too strange to invent. Glassman met Jon because her father performed Kate’s tummy tuck. After the separation, Jon moved into her parents’house, and their friendship turned romantic around the time she came home from college. They dated from June to October 2009, while she was a 22-year-old student at Indiana University. Glassman claims tabloid reporters showed up on campus, and the relentless scrutiny is what ultimately ended the relationship.“That whole ordeal ruined my life,”she said.
Her story lands at a moment when we’re re-litigating a lot of 2000s tabloid culture, and it raises a fair question: who exactly was harmed by a marriage that was already over? Reality TV made the Gosselins famous, but the fallout landed on everyone around them too.
Do you think Glassman deserved the“home-wrecker”label, or was she just caught in the crossfire? Sound off in the comments.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.