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The Jon & Kate Plus 8 alum revealed that just weeks before his November 2025 wedding to Stephanie Lebo, he was diagnosed with bilateral pulmonary embolisms, which occur when a blood clot breaks loose and travels to the lungs. John had one on either side of his body.
According to the 48-year-old, he first experienced "grueling pain" in his legs, which spread to his shoulder the next day, as he told The Daily Mail. After waking up from a coughing fit, John said, "I was like, 'Something is wrong.'" I coughed up what appeared to be silly putty—it was actually a blood clot."
The reality star—who has eight children with ex-wife Kate Gosselin—then drove himself to the hospital, where an MRI revealed his diagnosis.
"Stephanie was scared to death," he said, adding that his 21-year-old children, Hannah and Collin, "freaked out" at the news. Fortunately, the condition could be managed with medications.
"I'm on heart meds, blood pressure meds, aspirin, and then I take Eliquis," he told me. "It's a drug that prevents blood clots."
Jon is still haunted by what might have been.
"I definitely could have died," he admitted. "If I had just stayed home that night, I could have had a real pulmonary embolism and just died."
Jon's health scare came around the same time Kate, with whom he costarred on their reality show for ten years, experienced one of her own. Kate suffered a debilitating injury in late September when her dog collided with her leg while playing fetch.
"My boyfriend [Steve Neild] threw the ball and she came running for it, and she was running at the absolute speed of light, and I stepped the wrong way," she said in a TikTok Live at the time, according to People. "The only way I can describe it, it was like a concrete wall running at the speed of light."
The 50-year-old would need to undergo surgery and physical therapy for the injury, which prevented her from walking on the injured leg until 82 days later.
“It's walking day!” she said in a video posted on TikTok Dec. 20 as she made her way to a doctor’s appointment. “It finally came. I'm so excited I can't even stand it.”
