CONTENTS
Title Page
1 Who Cares?
2 Girl Power
3 Playing It Cool
4 Cat Lover
5 Kitty Litter
6 A Perfect Wedding
7 Mum’s the Word
8 A Kitten Shows Her Claws
9 Sister Act
10 Filling Roles
11 Jungle Belles
12 Queen Kerry I
13 Trouble Brewing
14 Mrs Mark
15 Crazy in Love
Copyright
Kerry Katona was thirteen years old. Quietly minding her own business, she was trying to ignore the shouting going on in the background. But this was more than the usual rows between her mother Sue and Sue’s violent boyfriend; this was getting quite out of control. First, the boyfriend slapped Sue viciously across the face. Then he turned on Kerry. As both women started screaming, Kerry was sure she was going to die.
‘Mum and her boyfriend were rowing and he slapped her,’ Kerry later recalled. ‘The next thing I knew, blood spurted out. Then he turned round to face me. I saw the flash of a blade and I was convinced he was going to kill me. We managed to fend him off until the neighbours came rushing in.’
Scenes of chaos and shouting ensued as the neighbours sought to hold him, while both women screamed for help. There had often been rows before, but this one had spiralled totally out of control and the neighbours knew that someone had to take action to protect the pretty schoolgirl and her mother and so, after some agonising, Social Services were alerted.
This was not the first time Social Services in Warrington, Cheshire, had been in touch with the Katonas. Sue had long been known to have mental problems and, although her own mother and sister helped as much as they could, there had long been concerns about her daughter Kerry’s welfare. The identity of Kerry’s father was and still is a mystery to her; her mother’s subsequent marriage seemed, for a while, to provide some sense of stability, but it had long since broken down. Since then, there had been a succession of boyfriends, none of whom were good father or husband material and none of whom were able to provide the security both mother and daughter so desperately craved. And now Sue had found herself with a partner who seemed set on doing herself and her daughter some harm.
And this was to prove the breaking point. Sue was told by Social Services to choose between her daughter and her boyfriend. She chose the latter. ‘I remember thinking, “Oh, Mum, couldn’t you for once have chosen me over him?”’ Kerry said. ‘But I had to forgive her. No matter what she did, she was all that I had.’
Indeed, the bond between the two has always been close and, in the light of Kerry’s marriage breakdown, has become stronger still. Neither should Sue be judged harshly; she had a mental illness that blighted much of Kerry’s childhood. But it was a harrowing time for both women and it would be some years before Kerry was old enough to make the break from her difficult background and strike out on her own.
Kerry Katona is a survivor. She’s had to be. If the secret of success is an unhappy childhood, then Kerry was destined for greatness from the moment of conception, because her childhood wasn’t so much unhappy as horrific. She never knew her father, and her mother’s mental illness left her unable to look after her child. Kerry spent years being moved from one foster home to the next, from one refuge to another, all the while desperately seeking a stability that, as a child, she never found.
Now, of course, Kerry is one of Britain’s most famous celebrities, an ex-Atomic Kitten, an erstwhile Queen of the Jungle … and a star. But it has taken incredible strength to overcome her dreadful early years and become one of our best-loved faces. It could all have ended up very differently indeed.
‘I was so down,’ Kerry says. ‘I wanted to jump out of windows. I wanted to die. I really did and I just kept thinking I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I didn’t have a very good childhood but Mum had the worst childhood of all and spent it mostly in care, too. She never really knew how to love, so I lived with my aunties, my stepdad, foster parents and in care homes.’ It was a very tough time, but it resulted in making Kerry tough, too. There is certainly a vulnerability about her, but it should be no surprise when she bounces back from adversity. She’s had to – right from the start.
Kerry Jayne Elizabeth Katona was born on 9 September 1980 in Warrington, Cheshire, and from the very beginning it was clear there would be trouble ahead. Her mother Sue had had an affair with a married man who had other children of his own, which resulted in her falling pregnant. The affair was over by the time the pregnancy was discovered; she was determined, however, to go ahead with it.
‘Susan was adamant she was going to have the baby,’ said Betty Katona, Kerry’s grandmother, who helped her granddaughter through some of her most difficult times, ‘although her relationship had already ended when she realised she was expecting. Kerry’s dad is probably kicking himself now when he sees how well his daughter has done. In a funny way, not having him around has helped Kerry – it made her want to do well and make something of her life.’
It was a brave decision on Sue’s part and so she went ahead and had her child. As she was growing up, however, Kerry felt the absence of a father as she began to realise she had only one parent. Indeed, she only discovered that her father was married to someone else when she was eight and, to this day, she has no idea as to his true identity. ‘I started looking at men on the street, wondering if one of them was my real dad,’ she admitted. She did not, however, try to find him. ‘Maybe it’s because I couldn’t face any more rejection,’ she said.
But like so many children who do not know the full story behind their past, Kerry has clearly been marked by the experience. For a start, the yearning to know more about her background remained. ‘I’ve never known my dad and he never got in touch,’ she said wistfully on another occasion. ‘But I must look like him because I’m not like my mum – she’s got dark-brown hair and blue eyes and I’m blonde with dark-brown eyes.’ It is a touching remark and a reminder of just how difficult her childhood was. Even today, Kerry retains a deep sense of insecurity even in her adult life as a successful performer. That said, she also has an extremely tough streak, one that has helped her to survive both her childhood and problems in her adult life.
Matters were not helped by the fact that the little family was desperately poor and frequently found themselves with nowhere they could really call home. There was never any money and the duo often had to rely on external agencies for help. ‘When I was a baby, we moved around women’s refuges,’ Kerry recalled. ‘I remember Christmas time in one of them when the Salvation Army came around with a big bag of toys.’
On another occasion, the family was so hard up they had to sell their pet parrot to buy essentials. Life was as harsh as it could be and, at that stage at least, the future seemed destined to be bleak. With disadvantages like these to overcome, it takes a will of iron to break free.
Eventually, Sue moved with her daughter to a tiny council flat, which was so small that they had to share a bed. But that did not herald the end of their problems; the years of dreadful insecurity had taken their toll and