Jon Gosselin has gone public with his girlfriend, Stephanie Lebo, after two years of dating.
The “Jon & Kate Plus 8” alum revealed that the two are the “happiest” they have ever been in an interview with the US Sun published Tuesday.
“We are really happy and in love. We are very comfortable with each other, it just fits. Plus, all our friends are the same people, instead of ‘your friends’ and ‘my friends,’” Gosselin said.
“I feel it’s taken 19 years to find Steph. All the trials and tribulations, the heartbreak, the fighting, and worrying about who is going to talk about me to the press, then finally I meet Steph.”
The reality star recalled how the two met just months after his split from Colleen Conrad, whom he dated from 2015 to 2021.
“We met at a backyard barbecue at a mutual friend Dean’s house,” Gosselin told the outlet.
“It was a hillbilly thing, we let fireworks off, it was fun. I had been single for a few months after Colleen [Conrad] and I broke up.”
As for Lebo, she told the US Sun that things have been going smoothly in the relationship.
“We have so much in common because we have both been with people who are not the best for us, but we wouldn’t appreciate what we have together if it wasn’t for those experiences,” she said.
Gosselin recalled being so smitten with Lebo when they first met that he promptly asked their mutual friend Dean about her.
“I said, ‘Did you ever hook up with Stephanie?’ and he said, ‘No man, she’s like my sister.” And then I called Stephanie and asked her the same. She said, ‘No way, he’s like my brother,’” he explained.
“And that’s how it started, it was random really,” he added. “I wasn’t looking for anything, and neither was she, but it just happened.”
While Lebo admitted to knowing who Jon was prior to their introduction, she wasn’t privy to any of the drama between him and his ex-wife, Kate Gosselin.
The former TV personality was married to Kate from 1999 to 2009. The two share twins Mady and Cara, 22, as well as sextuplets Collin, Hannah, Alexis, Aaden, Leah and Joel, 19.
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“I knew about his past and everything, although I was never Team Jon or Team Kate because I just didn’t know enough or watch the show that much,” Lebo said.
“It didn’t phase me or anything and I never treated him any different.”
Jon, for his part, was relieved that Lebo didn’t have too much knowledge about his reality show past.
“I always thought my relationships were going to be a struggle and people would always have a chip on their shoulder,” he said.
“But this time it’s not like that at all. It’s easy.”
Jon and Kate’s highly publicized divorce led to a messy custody battle over six of their eight children as their oldest twins were no longer minors at the time.
In May, Jon admitted that he has not spoken to Mady and Cara in nine years.
“The last time I spoke to Mady and Cara was 2014,” he told the US Sun. “I periodically text Mady and Cara to see if I get a response, and at this point, I’ve never heard from them.”
Meanwhile, the former couple has continued to feud publicly over their son Collin, who accused Kate of taking her “anger and frustration” out on him following the divorce.
“I know my mother was going through a lot of things. I mean, a divorce and plenty of different things that can’t be easy to go through,” Collin said in Vice TV’s “Dark Side of the 2000s” documentary.
“And, you know, I want to think that she needed someone to take out her anger and frustration on, and it was just kind of me. I was in the way and I was there. So, she chose me.”
Since then Kate has labeled her son as “troubled,” claiming that he has mental health issues and “violent outbursts.”
However, Jon shut down his ex-wife’s claims last week.
“Kate posting cruel false accusations regarding Collin seems to be just another way for her to justify her inexcusable horrific past behavior toward him,” he told the US Sun.
“True love for a child wouldn’t include a mother attacking their son to the public.”
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