Kate Gosselin feels isolated and alone since the split from her mantrum-throwing ex - and the stress of a pending divorce is starting to affect the kids, too.

"You look around and very close, trusted people who you swear on your life would never ever, ever cash you in, for lack of better words, and those people do that," Gosselin told Natalie Morales for a one-hour special, "Kate: Her Story," that aired last night on TLC.

"When people leave your house and tell completely different stories, you tend not to trust [them]."

Asked who she has on her side now, Gosselin, 34, replied: "A very, very small group of people." Describing her current life, she said, "it is very lonely . . . I'm not alone per se but I don't have a person in the same boat. That's the hard part."

In the surprisingly tough interview - Morales challenged her on everything from doing the show in the first place, to her reported affair with her bodyguard, while reminding Gosselin that some people accuse her and husband Jon Gosselin of "the utmost in arrogance and self-absorption" - Gosselin alternately dabbed at her eyes or shot her interviewer a steely glare. (No, she insisted, she did not exploit her children: "There is nothing that would have forced me to put them in harm's way.")