GROWING up as an only child with a mum struggling severe mental health issues, Kerry Katona was introduced to drugs aged 14 and witnessed traumatic self harm.
The former Atomic Kitten star, 43, is still close to her mum Sue despite her chaotic upbringing, but it was this experience that drove her to strive to be the best mum she could to her own brood.
As with all families to a certain extent, it’s not been an easy ride – and Kerry has faced more than her fair share of hard time, criticism and heartache over the years.
Just last week, the star – who is engaged to fiancé Ryan Maloney – got emotional as she revealed she hadn’t seen eldest daughter Molly, 22, for nearly a year as she prepared to reunite with her.
Molly, and Kerry’s second eldest Lilly-Sue, now 21, who Kerry shares with first husband and Westlife star Brian McFadden, both live in Ireland – their dad’s home country – but maintain a very close relationship with both parents.
Writing in her latest OK! column, Kerry said: “I can’t wait to have them back.
“I haven’t seen Molly in almost a year! We talk on the phone every single day, but she just hasn’t been home to visit in a while.”
Kerry has five children in total, from her three marriages – a fact that she’s come under unnecessary attack for, and the star has been forced to hit back after being dubbed a ‘5×3 mum’.
Addressing the jibe, she said: “Nobody says anything about the dads. I’m the one bringing up the kids, yet I’m the one getting derogatory remarks.”
As well as Molly and Lilly, she also has Heidi, 17, and Max, 15, from her marriage to Mark Croft, and youngest daughter, Dylan-Jorge, 10, with late ex-husband, George Kay, who died in 2019 after an overdose.
Tragically, Kerry later revealed she was a victim of domestic violence within their relationship, with her late ex spitting and even strangling and hitting her while she was pregnant with their daughter.
The star became very emotional when talking on Loose Women about her abusive relationship in 2022, saying she’d “let [her] kids down”.
Speaking about the abuse on a separate occasion, she also said: “They heard the shouting and saw the black eyes. Eventually I left – I just thought, ‘I can’t let my kids grow up like this.'”
Kerry also admitted to Abbey Clancy on her podcast Exhibit A that as a result of past abusive relationships, her children are “so f***** up”.
Kerry dotes on all her kids of course, but she once joked she has so many, she has to “Google” their birthdays.
But there’s actually an incredibly heartbreaking reason Kerry always wanted a big brood, after growing up as an only child.
Speaking to The Guardian, Kerry said: “I have so many kids because I want to make sure that if anything happens to me, they’ve got each other.
“I don’t want them to go through shit in their lives on their own like I did. I want them to be so much better.
“When they’re naughty, I make them kiss, hug and make up. Every breath I take is for my kids. They’re my life.”
When you think about Kerry’s own upbringing, this sentiment makes sense.
As an only child growing up in Warrington, Kerry had an extremely tough childhood , attending eight schools, living in three refuges and was in an out of foster care.
Her mum Sue battled manic depression – something Kerry has spoken about in detail – and it forced Kerry to grow up quickly to care for her.
Speaking to The Guardian, Kerry said: “My earliest memory is watching my mum slit her wrists, when I was three.
“She was manic-depressive, and she self-harmed until I was 15.
“She’s got marks all the way up her wrists, which is why I’ve got the names of my two elder daughters, Mollie and Lilly, tattooed on my own wrists.”
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
It was this turbulent and at times traumatic childhood that left Kerry with feelings of worthlessness, and she’s admitted before her biggest fear is her children feeling ‘unloved’ .
Kerry previously said: “I’ve always tried to please people, make them laugh. Sitting in front of my mum, who was wanting to kill herself because her fella had died.
“I thought: ‘You selfish cow – what about me? Am I not good enough?’ I always felt really worthless.
“I always wanted to please her and make everybody love me, and I used humour as a defence mechanism.”
Recently now-sober Kerry also revealed how she became addicted to drugs, explaining she had been introduced to them by her mother at the age of 14.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain she said: “I started drugs when I was 14, before I was famous. My first drug I took was with my mum.
“I adore my mum and I love my mum, but we’ve had our ups and downs and my mum wasn’t really a mum. She told me it was sherbet and it was speed and I thought that was normal!
“My mum wasn’t very well. It is what it is, it’s happened I can’t sit with regret and hatred.”
Historic drug misuse meant Kerry underwent surgery earlier this year on her nose, something she was open about with her own kids, to hopefully put them off ever taking drugs themselves.
Here we look at the star's changing face - from fresh-faced pop singer to the latest £3,000 tweakment.
Kerry first went under the knife in 2004 for a boob job, and again in 2008 for another breast enhancement and liposuction.
In 2010 she also revealed she had tried to turn back time with some facial tweaks.
Kerry was bitten by the vampire facial bug in 2013, and feared she would die after a shocking reaction to the procedure, popularised by Kim Kardashian.
In 2019 Kerry sparked outrage by endorsing a ‘Katona Package’ at a London clinic offering “2ml face filler and one area fat dissolving” for £699.
When the mum-of-five approached her 40th, she celebrated with fillers and fat-dissolving injections in her chin to “enhance my natural beauty”.
Two years later Kerry joked she’d got a “brand new face” after a procedure called CoolSculpting, which freezes fat cells under the skin and destroys them. She had some fat removed from her chin and Botox injections.
In 2023, the TV star revealed a tighter jawline after treating herself to a “non-invasive facelift”.
In early 20224, Kerry had much more invasive eye lift and brow lift in January, at a cost of over £3,000.
Her fierce dedication and love for her brood must make the comments from cruel trolls even more difficult to endure, and Kerry has been called everything from an ‘unfit mother’ to ‘trash’.
In 2021 Kerry was forced to hit back after she was criticised for feeding her children takeaways for six months, after telling The Sun she hadn’t cooked a meal for half a year.
Speaking about the number of times she ordered in, she confessed: “I was mortified. I was embarrassed, not only as a human, but as a mum.
“…you get mum shamed, don’t you.
“You know, if you don’t cook a five-course meal for your children or you don’t bake… I don’t do any of that.”
Later, writing in her New column she said: “I did an interview to promote the show and admitted I was embarrassed about how many takeaways I’d been feeding the kids.
“I got a bit of backlash! Someone told me it’s child abuse and said I neglect my kids.
“Get a grip, sweetheart. My kids ordering sushi is not child abuse. It’s not like they’re eating scraps out of the bin.
“They’re privileged to be having takeaways.”
Thankfully, Kerry now seems happy and settled with fiancé Ryan Maloney who she’s been engaged to since 2022, and was even recently pictured wearing a ‘wedding ring’.
Kerry was forced to postpone plans to elope to Vegas, as her kids were gutted by the thought of missing their mum’s wedding – surely meaning they’ve given the seal of their approval for their mum’s current fella.
Kerry wrote in her OK! magazine column “Ryan and I were looking to go to Vegas to finally get married but Molly and Lilly said, ‘Don’t you dare do that without us’.
“I told them they’d already been at too many of my weddings! That put those plans on the back-burner.”
Touchingly, Ryan first asked her kids for their mum’s hand in marriage, and Kerry recently revealed Ryan plans to adopt her youngest, DJ.
A sign that there could be true happiness at last for Kerry, who once said: “I didn’t want to be rich and famous, I always wanted to be a mummy and a wife.”
