![\"Various](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/492e3b8a-8991-4045-a6ed-ab81b0991261.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWho is Kerry Katona? Girl band, you think, and you\u2019re right. She was in Atomic Kitten. You\u2019ll recognise her Nineties hits. She\u2019s the gorgeous, smiling blonde one with the brown eyes who married Westlife\u2019s Brian McFadden and had a No 1 with Whole Again. Then what else do you remember? Cocaine, addictions, divorces, bankruptcies, boob jobs, reconstructed nose, maybe. First Queen of the Jungle, Celebrity Big Brother, reality TV regular, friend of Katie Price, former face of Iceland, the frozen food store \u2014 and now OnlyFans star.<\/p>\n
A lime-green Lamborghini is parked on the gravel outside her house in Cheshire. Inside, the Christmas decorations are still up around the vast flatscreen TV and her three youngest (of five) children aged between 11 and 18 are at home, polite, helpful and chatty, a credit to her parenting skills, offering to make tea.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy children talk differently from me,\u201d Katona says, having a quick vape and hamming up her northern accent. \u201cThey don\u2019t swear, or I get mad. I\u2019m strict. I tell them, \u2018Do as I say, not as I\u2019ve done. Learn from my mistakes.\u2019 They went to private schools. They are massively middle class: my daughter Heidi has just been skiing. Me, I\u2019m still definitely not.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In Atomic Kitten with Natasha Hamilton, left, and Liz McClarnon, 2000<\/p>\n
SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n
Katona is constantly joking about her rollercoaster life. \u201cI\u2019ve been trash, car crash, hot mess, villain,\u201d she says, laughing. When the photographer asks to take a picture in the snow, she replies, \u201cI\u2019m not sure about being surrounded by white powder.\u201d Then she warns me about having too much breast surgery. \u201cI\u2019ve had my tits done and my nose fixed as I had a hole in it. I\u2019ve had Botox. I don\u2019t want much more. The last implants started slipping while I was having sex, Alice.\u201d Good to know.<\/p>\n
But when she talks about her childhood, calmly and with no trace of self-pity, I gasp. The make-up artist cries. Katona shows me the tattoos all over her body. \u201cI\u2019m covered in them. They\u2019ve all got meaning,\u201d she says. \u201cThis one is for inner strength. There\u2019s being a mother, my moral compass, my angel. I have a phoenix on my back rising from the ashes. I should have died many times. Sometimes I used to wish I had. Now I feel blessed to have reached 45.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 My life in a girl band: \u2018I was screaming in my hotel room\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n It is the ones on the inside of her wrists that are most poignant. \u201cOne of my first memories is watching my mum slit her wrists when I was three,\u201d she says. \u201cI had my older two daughters\u2019 names [Molly and Lilly-Sue] tattooed there so if I ever got to that point, I would see them and stop.\u201d<\/p>\n And suddenly she is talking about a terrified young girl from Warrington who had to pull a knife from her mother\u2019s thigh, who lived off stale ketchup sandwiches and moved her meagre possessions 70 times from crack dens to police protection, refuges and foster homes as her alcoholic, drug-addicted parent escaped abusive partners. This was all before she was 18, when she was discovered and thrust onto the stage and into the limelight.<\/p>\n On Big Brother in 2011<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m portrayed as this national humiliation\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cSit wherever you want to, my lovely,\u201d she says, moving the laundry, two pugs and two sausage dogs off the sofa. \u201cMy housekeeper hasn\u2019t been here for weeks. She\u2019s got an abscess. I\u2019m doing it all myself. Christmas was two adults, seven kids, four dogs and a partridge in a pear tree. Not exactly a holiday, but I loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n She seems content finally with Paolo Margaglione, a personal trainer and businessman she met on a reality TV dating show, who has two young daughters. \u201cTo be honest, I\u2019ve been in a really good place for the past decade, but the way I\u2019m portrayed is as this fallen woman, this national humiliation.\u201d She could have been, but she\u2019s not.<\/p>\n Atomic Kitten was one of the first girl bands created when aspirational young wannabe teenagers in the Nineties were paraded in crop tops and platform trainers and treated appallingly by an irresponsible pop industry looking for the next hit. Watching the recent BBC documentary Girlbands Forever, I feel we are the ones who should be embarrassed, I tell her.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it was vile,\u201d she says. \u201cWe were so young, easy prey. We worked 24\/7, but if we made a mistake we weren\u2019t forgiven. It was brutal, out of control. The cameras up the skirts, 40 paparazzi outside my home 24 hours a day. It got to the stage when I thought, this will only be over when they get the headline \u2018Kerry Katona dead\u2019. It nearly happened. Fame is an abusive drug. I became addicted to being in the press. If they tried it today, I\u2019d say, \u2018Come for me and watch me roar.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n With her first husband, Brian McFadden, 2002. \u201cI thought he was my \u2018for ever\u2019. Then he slept with a stripper\u201d<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Katona first had the idea of doing OnlyFans, a subscription-based online platform where creators share exclusive \u2014 often intimate \u2014 content, during the pandemic when all her other work doing reality TV shows, pantomimes and live acts had dried up. \u201cEverything was cancelled,\u201d she says. \u201cI was panicking. How could I pay the rent and the bills with five kids? Then someone mentioned OnlyFans. I started off as a glamour girl, a page 3 model. I wasn\u2019t going to be a f***ing rocket scientist. I had no chance of that with my childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n What did she learn as a child? \u201cThe only thing my mother taught me was how to headbutt,\u201d Katona says, bluntly. \u201cAnd how to look after myself and to survive. I took my children back to where I was brought up recently and they said, \u2018We\u2019re not getting out of the car.\u2019 But I had a great set of tits and a lovely smile. That was my get-out and still is.\u201d<\/p>\n So, she asked her children, \u201c \u2018How would you feel if I do a bit of glamour modelling again, just to get us through this?\u2019 They were fine and with OnlyFans you can be in control and they only take 20 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s never tried to hide anything from her children, she says. \u201cWe\u2019re an open family. My kids tell me everything too, even my son. I am their mum. I want to be there for them and guide them.\u201d<\/p>\n At home, January 2026. \u201cI was hounded night and day until I did almost go mad\u201d<\/p>\n JUDE EDGINTON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. HAIR AND MAKE-UP: ASHLEY PARKIN (@MAKEUPBYASHLEYUK\/INSTAGRAM)<\/p>\n \u2018I first did drugs at 14. My mum told me it was sherbet\u2019<\/p>\n Yet some of her time as an Atomic Kitten looked like fun. \u201cOf course, there were bits of the Nineties I miss. We still sing the songs in the car. I have this nostalgia for when pop stars were pop stars, getting real fan mail, performing on the stage, the clothes, the clubs, the music. It was special. To think I was this kid who was in foster homes, doing drugs with her mum as a teenager, watching her get beaten up, suddenly having been a part of something that big, successful and British.\u201d<\/p>\n But it was also exploitative of vulnerable young women. \u201cI was hounded night and day until I did almost go mad. It was the most horrific, suicidal time, one of my darkest times. I was so naive, but there were also amazing highs. I am still proud to have been part of it and got through it, if that makes sense, this council estate kid making pop history.\u201d<\/p>\n At first drugs weren\u2019t a problem, she says. \u201cI\u2019d already done them at 14. My mum told me this powder was sherbet. It was speed. I had a great day. It was awesome, so I started to save my pocket money from my foster parents to buy coke. I didn\u2019t really know any better, but when I got in the band I cleaned up. It was only when I\u2019d go home that I didn\u2019t want to look stuck up and I\u2019d start again.\u201d<\/p>\n She was never offered therapy in the band or advice, although later she was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, and with bipolar disorder, like her mother. \u201cWhen I was 19 the doctors put me on antidepressants. I was blamed for not being able to cope with the pressure. We worked so hard. We didn\u2019t have days off. We were paid \u00a3350 a week. All I wanted to do was be on the stage. I just wasn\u2019t prepared for what came with it.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2025, vaping by her Lamborghini<\/p>\n SPLASH NEWS<\/p>\n Watching her mother slash her wrists was her second memory, she says. \u201cI\u2019ll never repeat my very first memory, that\u2019s how bad it was. She did that up until I was 17. She had a Stanley knife and would threaten to cut herself. My mum used to have a baking tray in the oven that was full of lines. She fed me cigarettes. She\u2019d had an even worse childhood than mine. She was left in an alley when she was six weeks old. Her mum was a prostitute. She was put in a kids\u2019 home with four of her siblings before being fostered. I think as much as she wanted to be a good mum, she didn\u2019t stand a chance. She was 20 when she had me. She was sectioned sometimes and I\u2019d visit her in hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n What people don\u2019t understand, Katona says, is that however badly her mother behaved, she was still her universe. \u201cI didn\u2019t live with her much \u2014 her relationships were too explosive \u2014 but she had such control over me. I\u2019d be with my foster parents and she\u2019d ring from a phone box, saying, \u2018I\u2019m naked and I\u2019ve been beaten up.\u2019 I would give her my pocket money. I still love my mum, but she\u2019s draining. She gravitates towards misery.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, Katona says she was determined to be positive. \u201cI was funny, quick-witted, pretty. I was the entertainer. I moved schools so much I learnt to make people laugh, so I was never bullied or a mean girl, but I was popular.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018This guy would beat my mum up, knife her\u2019<\/p>\n And school was an escape of sorts. \u201cMy mum would go out on these benders. She was hard as nails. She\u2019d throw an ashtray. She\u2019d start a fight. She was always in the pub, so when I was young, I thought I\u2019d grow up to be a barmaid.\u201d Katona learnt to shop and cook and shoplift. \u201cI skipped classes to look after her, although I resented it. I\u2019ll never forget my mum came home really drunk one evening and she told me to make her one of those steak and ale pies in a tin, with chips, then she threw it everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the abusive relationships that nearly destroyed them both. \u201cThis guy David would beat my mum up, knife her, hold a shotgun to her head, make her crawl. I hated him. I remember on my 13th birthday her saying she\u2019d go back to Dave. That\u2019s when I thought I couldn\u2019t do it any more. A lovely police lady calmed me down, took a shine to me and put me with emergency foster parents. I went through a series of foster homes. The best had rules. I had to do my homework. There was food in the fridge. It was great. But then my mum would come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Atomic Kitten at the Smash Hits poll winners\u2019 party in London, December 2000<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see why Katona became convinced her looks were her way out. She shows me a picture of herself at 16, a stunning schoolgirl in her uniform, and another of her teenage breasts. \u201cI was obsessed with my tits from nine. They looked so fake and false, they were perfect.\u201d They had so little money that they sold her parrot, Alfie, for \u00a320 so Katona could buy some Tampax. So her mum signed her up to a glamour agency. \u201cThe photographer did that thing, \u2018Take your top off,\u2019 and it started from there. No one stepped in and said it wasn\u2019t right. But you know, be your own hero. I had only myself. I just thought, I have to make this work.\u201d<\/p>\n When Katona, who loved singing, saw they were looking for a new girl band, she took her page 3 pictures to the audition. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget the phone call, when we were told we\u2019d got the record deal and were signed.\u201d The two other girls, Natasha Hamilton and Liz McClarnon, rang their parents, who were thrilled. \u201cI rang my mum. She was so pissed she didn\u2019t recognise me. But I thought, if I become famous, if I make loads of money and buy my mum a house, she will love me and it will fix everything.\u201d<\/p>\n She also sought a father figure. \u201cOf course I did. I have had five serious relationships in 30 years.\u201d She was 18 when she met her first husband, Brian McFadden from Westlife, and they had the fairytale OK! wedding. \u201cI thought he was my \u2018for ever\u2019. We were puppies, babies, back then. I wanted him to be my knight in shining armour and rescue me from my old life. But then he slept with a stripper on his stag night and was unfaithful.\u201d<\/p>\n This was when Katona spiralled out of control. \u201cIt was so bad. I was very famous at the time, so I had to be shipped to Arizona for therapy. I used to tell my life story like it was just a script. I thought it was normal. They had to peel back the layers. It took me a long time to learn to cry.\u201d It didn\u2019t stop her returning and marrying Mark Croft, a taxi driver who she says was her mother\u2019s drug dealer.<\/p>\n With two of her children, Heidi and Max, 2025. \u201cAlthough I had the wrong partners, I had the right children\u201d<\/p>\n SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n \u201cThat should have been a one-night stand but I\u2019m eternally grateful he gave me two amazing children, Heidi and Max.\u201d Croft sold stories to the tabloids about his wife. Meanwhile, she was declared bankrupt. \u201cI was reliving my childhood. It was a toxic, dark time.\u201d<\/p>\n Then she married George Kay, a former rugby league player, who was arrested after allegedly assaulting her and died from an overdose in 2019. \u201cIt all sounds so bad. But I have another gorgeous daughter, DJ.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I finally learnt I could be enough without men\u2019<\/p>\n Now, she says, she\u2019s a multiple divorcee and widow. \u201cI finally learnt I could be enough without men. My children didn\u2019t need a father if I could be the best mother. I always wanted to be Daddy\u2019s little girl, to have the protection of a dad. I desperately wanted my children to have that, but it didn\u2019t happen. I was so worried that I\u2019d repeat the cycle, but I haven\u2019t. We\u2019ve made it work. I don\u2019t regret the band, the drugs, the husbands. I am grateful, because, although I had the wrong partners, I had the right children.\u201d<\/p>\n Work is now flooding in again. \u201cI\u2019m doing podcasts. I\u2019m going on tour as Donna in Mamma Mia! for three months, performing at the O2. I do Butlin\u2019s gigs. I do panto.\u201d She is still a people-pleaser. \u201cI love making people smile. My only addiction left is the press. I like being in the papers. But I do my own pap pictures and holiday photos now. I don\u2019t want others making money from me.\u201d<\/p>\n Which brings us back to OnlyFans. She is one of several celebrities, including Price, to appear on ITV in Olivia Attwood: Getting Filthy Rich, revealing their lucrative new careers. \u201cListen, I\u2019d rather get my tits out for a grand a day than pick up litter,\u201d she says. \u201cYou could sign up. I can show you. There is so much more to OnlyFans than tits. If you are a journalist and want to teach people how to write or you are a make-up artist, you can do an OnlyFans subscription. But for me, the quickest way is being sexual. I do it all myself. It\u2019s dead easy. I don\u2019t use filters or airbrushing. I could sit here while we\u2019re chatting, take off my top, do a bit of heavy breathing, film it and upload it. Why wouldn\u2019t I? Why are you not doing it?\u201d<\/p>\n Does it make her think less of men? \u201cI think they are all f***ers anyway. It\u2019s not OnlyFans that made me think that. I don\u2019t have a great respect for many men. It\u2019s the way I have been treated by them. I\u2019m probably more grateful now to them because they have made me so much money rather than making money out of me. I made \u00a3160,000 the first month. I thought, f*** me. Quick, bend over!\u201d<\/p>\n With her partner, Paolo Margaglione, last November<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Her four daughters, she says, will not be doing it. \u201cLet me do it all. They are too good for all this. Let me do what I need to do for them to be better than me.\u201d How much does she make now? \u201cI\u2019m not saying because it\u2019s just bragging, but a lot. In the millions. It all goes on the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n If she had been born into a different life, what would she have liked to have been? \u201cI\u2019d love to have been an actress, but my name holds me back. I\u2019m too redtop. I\u2019m not even posh enough for Traitors, but I\u2019d love that.\u201d What about becoming a politician? She\u2019s told me she\u2019d like to campaign for more protection for young women starting out in the creative industries. \u201cNigel Farage<\/a> texts me now and then. Of course he f***ing does. I bet he used to love a page 3 back in the day. Maybe he wants a discount.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never voted in all my life. I couldn\u2019t be a politician, but I think it\u2019s the biggest scam how much tax we pay and yet look at all the potholes round here. It\u2019s not good for my Lamborghini. And look at all the children still in care. Nothing gets done for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Her children are her greatest achievement, she says. \u201cI always wanted loads. They are my gang. I don\u2019t have a social life. I don\u2019t leave home much unless it\u2019s for work. I\u2019m a bit of a loner. Entertaining people is draining; I find it exhausting. If I go out, I\u2019m always watched. I had a double vodka lime lemonade and a tequila shot on New Year\u2019s Eve. But that is my limit.\u201d<\/p>\n Will she be stuck with the press for the rest of her life? \u201cI hope not.\u201d Will she still do OnlyFans at 75? \u201cAbso-f***ing-lutely. If my tits aren\u2019t dragging on that floor and I am still making the money I am making, why would I not?<\/p>\n \u201cFor years it was a pity party. I felt sorry for myself. I thought I deserved a line of coke after my terrible childhood, my messed-up marriages, accountants stealing my money. I thought the world owed me a break. But no one is going to do anything for you. The only person who can is you.\u201d <\/p>\n Olivia Attwood: Getting Filthy Rich is on ITV2 and ITVX on Sunday January 18 at 10pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who is Kerry Katona? Girl band, you think, and you\u2019re right. She was in Atomic Kitten. You\u2019ll recognise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-415088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Celebrity](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/17386674-1137-47e9-8b81-53f678b367df.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Kerry](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/55fa8e06-f0db-41f9-96ee-93f8f8b958cd.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Kerry](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/ca166e9d-fd87-402b-aded-34b34e8e382c.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Atomic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/1edbe364-baa2-4772-8dca-946e4cd3df94.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/172cf86a-1011-4311-b734-224245718987.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/fdf037ca-de04-4b66-b2c7-f9e5a8e6f5d4.jpg\")
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