Kate Gosselin as the next Bachelorette? Please spare us the pain

Ever since Kate Gosselin got booted off Dancing with the Stars, rumors have been flying that for her next television gig, she will be playing the role of eligible singleton on an ABC dating show. Just today E! online posted a denial from the network. And yet here we are mere hours later and Ryan Seacrest is taking the rumor to new heights on his radio show, saying that Gosselin will be the next Bachelorette. He brought it up with his guest, Bachelor and Bachelorette host Chris Harrison, who said the show had never approached her about it, then added, “She’s a lovely woman, as nice as can be. It would be a great show. What guy would have what it takes to just even walk in the door and say, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna give this a shot’?” Seacrest then got the franchise’s creator Mike Fleiss on the line, and he seemed less enthralled with the idea than Harrison. “It’s kind of interesting. I never thought about it.” He went on to say that the only way it would work would be as a special, lest they “jump the shark.” A rep for TLC (home of Kate Plus 8) authorized to speak for Gosselin calls the rumors “not true.” An ABC spokesperson confirms there’s “no truth to it.”

Whew. Kate Gosselin going on televised dates and handing out roses to a pool of eligible single men? I have a pretty high threshold for trash TV, but I’d have to draw the line here. Should the laws of the universe against fame-seeking overkill suddenly implode and this scenario became a reality, would you tune in?