LIP SERVICE: Wilkinson. (WireImage)
CUT! Kate Gosselin, here with two of her eight kids, switches places with Kendra Wilkinson on ABC. (
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The ABC series “Celebrity Wife Swap” is not usually listed as a comedy — but there will be elements of an “I Love Lucy” episode when pampered playmate Kendra Wilkinson switches places with the General Patton of mothers — one-time reality star Kate Gosselin (“Jon & Kate Plus 8”).
Executive producer Bruce Toms dished about the switcheroo, which occurs in the Feb. 26 season premiere.
“Kate is very structured, a very controlling person. Kendra just does not live that way,” Toms says. “Kate wakes up every morning and bakes fresh bread for her family.
“Kendra didn’t even know what a breadmaker was. It was up to Kendra to follow Kate’s rules.”
Feeding the Gosselin brood, which includes twins Cara and Mady, 12 — and 8-year-old sextuplets Aaden, Collin, Joel, Leah, Alexis and Hannah — was a disaster for Wilkinson, who has one son, Hank, but live-in help to care for him.
“Kendra is not a cook at all,” Toms says. “It was a mess.”
The show’s producers had long dreamt of who they could cast opposite Gosselin, 37, a single mom following her divorce from Jon Gosselin. “We had to find a real great contrast,” Toms says. “They’re both beautiful young women, with very different ways of raising their kids.”
Gosselin got the cushier end of the deal, moving in with Wilkinson’s husband, former NFL wide receiver Hank Baskett — whom Toms describes as a very “hands-on” dad. Still, Toms says, there were problems that arose because Baskett and Gosselin are “two alpha dogs that want to be on top. They have some good arguments.”
One of the highlights of the episode is Wilkinson’s arrival at the Gosselin farm, unaware who lives there. “As soon as she landed in Philadelphia and drove out into the farm country and saw the house, with the chickens and all the little shoes lined up, she was a little freaked out,” Toms says, adding that the women parted friends and that families keep in touch.
“I think they both learned out that this experience was not just about child-rearing,” Toms says.