US reality star Kate Gosselin was knocked over by thieves at an east Auckland supermarket. Photo / @kate.gosselin
US reality star Kate Gosselin was knocked over by thieves at an east Auckland supermarket. Photo / @kate.gosselin
An American reality TV star on a current visit to New Zealand says she was almost knocked to the ground during a supermarket shoplifting incident.
Kate Gosselin, from 2000s hit show Kate Plus 8, had been shopping at New World in the Auckland suburb of Botany when the chaotic incidentunfolded, according to the Daily Mail.
Gosselin posted a video to TikTok, filmed immediately after the shocking moment. In the clip she said a man attempted to flee the supermarket with a trolley full of stolen groceries.
“The guy ran past us and lost his shoe,” she said.
“He literally pushed past me, almost knocked me in my lack of walking state.”
“I love that Steve turns right back into a cop on a moment’s notice,” she said.
The 50-year-old mother-of-eight compared the quick response of staff and bystanders to what she’s observed back in the States.
“You should see all the Kiwi men running after him, trying to stop him. Everybody’s on their phone to the police. It’s a big deal here, because honestly, there’s not much crime here,” she said.
“In America, they would have just let him go.
New World Botany staff successfully retrieved the stolen groceries, though the thieves escaped in a waiting car. Photo / @kate.gosselin
“Often-times, [people] don’t pitch in and they don’t try to stop it. It’s so refreshing to see. There was like six or eight of them that went flying after him.”
Gosselin added that even she contributed to efforts to halt the thief in his tracks, kicking his shoe as he made a break for it, according to the Daily Mail.
She was also heard shouting “good job guys” as two New World staff returned the shopping trolley to the supermarket.
Gosselin reported the thief managed to escape in a waiting car, but not before several members of the public took down the vehicle’s number plate, which she said was “so cool”.
Reality star Kate Gosselin said she was impressed with the response of staff and bystanders to a robbery at New World in Botany. Photo / @kate.gosselin
She was seen in a previous TikTok walking around the New World admiring New Zealand products such as Vogel bread and crumpets, exclaiming “America could never”.
Kate Plus 8 was a reality show about the Gosselin family: Kate, her estranged husband Jon and their eight children, fraternal twins and sextuplets.
The hit show enjoyed an 11-season run from 2007-2017.
Gosselin and her children travelled to New Zealand in 2011 to film an episode which featured visits to Ōtorohanga Kiwi House, Waitomo Caves and Rotorua.
She later called the trip a “nightmare” saying the group were mobbed by paparazzi in the King Country town of Ōtorohanga.
