Former Atomic Kitten star Natasha Hamilton has opened up on her time in the hit group and the feud she had with bandmate Kerry Katona
07:00, 28 Mar 2026Updated 09:57, 28 Mar 2026
Natasha Hamilton on horror health battle and bitter Kerry Katona feud(Image: Handout)
There was a time when girlband Atomic Kitten ruled the charts, their glossy smiles plastered across every teenage bedroom wall in Britain. But behind the perfect pop harmonies and their era-defining No.1 hit Whole Again , band member Natasha Hamilton was quietly unravelling.
The group formed in Liverpool in 1998 and the original line-up featured Natasha, Liz McClarnon and Kerry Katona. Jenny Frost later replaced Kerry. When the band announced their split in May 2004, citing their desire to focus on family life and solo projects, it was a turbulent period for Natasha.
Following the birth of her second son, Harry, in December of that year, she spiralled into postnatal depression. She says, “It wasn’t the way I ever saw my career going. For it to end as bad as it did, it was so sad. And it just left such a horrible feeling in my body that I couldn’t really talk about it.”
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Liz McClarnon, Natasha Hamilton and Kerry Katona(Image: Getty Images)
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Now 43 and a proud mum of five, Natasha is newly reborn as an independent solo artist and she’s done pretending. This isn’t the shiny pop princess fans remember – this is Natasha raw, honest and finally in control. She admits going through early perimenopause has tested her physically and emotionally. “I started taking HRT about 12 months ago. Before that I was falling apart,” she says, bluntly. “I had no confidence. I was almost sabotaging all the hard work I’d been putting into releasing new music as an independent artist. I just lost all confidence in myself. I was indecisive and scared. And I’m like, ‘This is not me.’”
She is still on what she calls a “journey” — one that began after she became a mum for the fifth time to daughter Kitty in August 2023, when she realised her body was changing in ways she didn’t understand.
“I was also diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune condition that attacks the thyroid and causes hypothyroidism, meaning my thyroid was underactive and not producing enough hormones to regulate my metabolism, energy and mood,” she says. “So the version of Natasha now is not what it was pre-Kitty.”
In the early months of Kitty’s life, Natasha says she barely recognised herself and describes rolling out of bed in agony. “I’d put my feet on the floor and every bone in my feet, in my shins, everything was… I was in so much pain. Honestly, it was awful.”
The once-fearless performer suddenly felt frightened of her own mind. “It’s not because you’re not living the life you want to live, it’s because your brain’s mangled with hormones and I couldn’t remember anything,” she admits. “My recall was so slow and I couldn’t find the right words. I started to feel insecure and embarrassed.”
The physical toll was brutal. “After I had the baby, I was breastfeeding, but I was ballooning, I was swollen. I didn’t understand what was going on. But when I had a raft of blood tests and discovered I have hypothyroidism, it all started to fall into place, and now I’m on thyroxine for life.”
Then came the hair loss. “I did mourn my hair,” she says. “It was my confidence. Brushing in the morning, there were clumps, and my hairline started to recede.”
She tried supplements, collagen and even microneedle treatment around her hairline. “I’ve only had one and, honestly, I was so impressed,” she says.
Her lowest moment came six months after Kitty’s birth, when she was shooting a pop video while battling thyroid chaos and perimenopause. She says, “I felt most insecure when I came back to music and the baby must’ve been about six months old. I was bigger than I’d ever been, especially on camera.”
So she stood in front of the mirror and gave herself a talking-to. “I remember looking in the mirror and saying, ‘Step into your power. You were a young, thin pop star, but that’s not you now. You’ve just had your fifth kid. You’ve been through life, you’ve had your battles and you look f***ing great. So what if you have cellulite?’
Natasha rose to fame in Atomic Kitten (Image: Getty Images)
“I spent years in an industry that took chunks out of young women, out of me. And I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna now do that to myself.’ I love myself more than that.”
Natasha has juggled motherhood with various work projects, including Celebrity Big Brother and several Atomic Kitten reunions. In 2013, the original line-up reunited for the Big Reunion TV special and arena tour. Between 2021 and 2022, Natasha returned with Liz and Jenny to perform and re-record tracks for Euro 2020. And in 2022, they toured the UK and Ireland with Blue.
However, in October 2024, after more than 25 years with Atomic Kitten, Natasha announced she was leaving the group to focus on her solo career. She’d already started laying the groundwork – Edge Of Us was released in May 2024, followed by Burning Letters in January 2025 and Numb in January this year, under her own label Morpho Records.
She admits Numb was born out of years of criticism — the headlines, the judgment about her relationships and the cruel online jibes, including being branded a “4×4” because she had children with four different men. [She had Josh, now 22, with Fran Cosgrave, Harry, now 20, with Gavin Hatcher, Alfie, now 14, with ex-husband Riad Erraji, and Ella, now 10, with Ritchie Neville from boyband 5ive.]
“You do get to a point where you just shut down,” she says. “You protect yourself by not feeling it. And that’s where Numb came from.”
But the person who has brought her much joy is her husband Charles Gay. They met in 2016 and got engaged later that year, with Charles proposing during a romantic trip to New York. They married in Italy’s Lake Como in September 2021.
After being told her chances of having a fifth baby were “super, super low”, Natasha turned to IVF — and admits it nearly broke her. “Honestly, I was so poorly on the first round,” she says. “I was quite depressed with the hormones. I said to my husband, ‘I don’t know if I can put myself through that again.’”
They stopped after that one failed round. “I just said, ‘I don’t want to do that again. It’s not making me feel good,’” Natasha admits. Then came a miracle — a natural pregnancy just months later, after she tracked her cycle using the Natural Cycles app. “We said to one another, ‘Wow, this is insane,’” Natasha smiles.
Although she’s busy with motherhood and launching her solo career, Natasha says she would be open to another Atomic Kitten reunion. But don’t expect the original line-up with Liz, who recently had a baby after years of fertility treatment, and Jenny, who lives in Ibiza. As for Kerry, who recently said she would return “in a heartbeat”– it isn’t something Natasha would entertain.
“I wish Kerry all the best. That girl has been out there. She’s a hustler. She looks after those kids so well. Fair play to the girl,” Natasha says. “There’s no big thing, but when it comes to work, that isn’t going to happen.”
As well as going solo and launching her own label, Natasha is mentoring new artists. “I’ve done it as an independent artist, backing myself, building a record label. It’s not easy, it’s really hard. But I feel I’m now in a place where I want to give back,” she says.
Put simply, she’s finally reclaiming herself. “I haven’t felt sexy in ages. Like, what is sexy? But it’s slowly happening because I’m just finding that confidence in myself, and I’m not putting the pressure on myself to be this sexy pop person. I think being confident is sexy.” She pauses. “I have a fulfilled career and personal life. I’ve got an incredible husband. The kids are great. They’re thriving, so I can’t really ask for more than that.”
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