Kerry Katona says she often went hungry as a kid and survived on 'ketchup butties'
EXCLUSIVE: The Atomic Kitten star recalls constantly being hungry as a kid and says no child should have to go without in today’s Britain. Kerry says she was so hungry that she would often steal to feed herself.
She became the first ever Queen of the Jungle by keeping positive when faced by jungle critters.
Kerry Katona dealt with her three memorable weeks in the I’m a Celebrity camp the same way she’d faced life growing up when her trials were so much harder.
By her own admission, the former Atomic Kitten, who won the nation’s hearts during her stint on the show back in 2004, had one of the worst starts in life.
Because of her manic depressive mum Sue’s mental illness, she went to eight schools, stayed with four different foster families and lived in three refuges.
When she was 14, Sue - who has since turned her life around - gave her Speed to try after telling it was ‘sherbet’.
But the most harrowing memory of her childhood wasn’t the constant moving or her mum’s issues - but the gnawing hunger the young girl felt every day. And her experience has made her believe passionately that no child should have to go without in today’s Britain.
Kerry says: “I one hundred per cent remember a time when there was not enough food in the house, when there just wasn’t enough money.
“I must have been about nine-years-old and used to look in the cupboards and think ‘What could I make for tea’?
“When I was living with my mum, she would go out on benders for three days and there would be no food. I was only about nine.
“I would live on tomato ketchup butties. There might be some stale bread in the cupboard and ketchup in a bottle and that is what I would live on until my mum would come home.”
Her empty stomach even caused her to steal. Kerry says: “I used to shoplift all the time as a kid. I remembering going to Warrington market with my mum and stealing, just because we used to be starving.”
Kerry got a helping hand in life when she went to live with foster parents Margaret and Fred Woodall when she was 13, as her mum battled manic depression.
“One of the first things I remember when I went to my foster parents house was opening the cupboards and saying: “Oh my God, you’ve got so much food in’,” she recalls.
It was the start of her road to a better future for the mixed-up teen, who found success as a singer after joining girl band Atomic Kitten when she was 18. When Margaret died in 2016 Kerry called her “one of the most important people in my life.”
Kerry says her own experiences of poverty means she knows how millions of British children are struggling today.
And as a free school meals kid herself, she fully supported Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford’s campaign to ensure children are fed during school holidays.
She says: “I know how it feels to go to school hungry and I can empathise with families that don’t have a lot of money. I had to teach myself how to cook from an early age, looking for food in the cupboards.”
In her childhood Kerry would hide some of her mum’s money so she wouldn’t go out drinking with it.
“I used to go and cash my mum’s money for her. I’d keep 20p for myself and get myself a Dime bar. I’d try and hide a bit of her money so she wouldn’t go and spend it and go off on the p*** with it.
“I love my mum to bits - she’s nothing like that anymore.
“My mum has OCD and everything is always spotless and clean but during her bad days when I was about nine, she’d come in bladdered and ask me to make her something to eat. I made her a steak and kidney pie and chips and she threw it everywhere. We had just come out of a refuge - we lived in two in Manchester.
“In the first year of high school, we were living in the Salvation Army and my mum went missing and I was there on my own for two weeks. Luckily the other women fed me and looked after me.”
The pandemic and the economic uncertainty it’s caused has made child poverty worse in many parts of the country.
Kerry, who has started training as a life coach, knows some families must be in a desperate situation because even she suffered with money problems through the last lockdown period.
She says: “I sold my jukebox to pay my rent. My first husband Brian bought it for me - it must have been about sixteen grand. I think I got about £1900 for it.”
The former singer recently got engaged to boyfriend Ryan Mahoney, who popped the question to her on holiday in Spain over the summer with the blessing of her five children - Molly, 19, Lilly-Sue, 17, Heidi, 13, Maxwell, 12 and Dylan-Jorge, six. She was previously married to singer Brian McFadden, 40, Mark Croft, 49 and the late George Kay.
As a mum she says she can empathise with parents whose money worries push them to the brink.
“I’ve always worked but I completely understand why people take their lives over money,” she says.
“That’s one thing I never used to get until it happened to me. Not enough people talk out about money troubles. There were times that I felt suicidal, thinking how are these five babies going to rely on me when I can’t provide for them. I’ve never claimed any kind of benefit, ever. Though I understand how difficult it is for so many families.”
Kerry can remember the gratitude she felt when there were people there to help out. She says: “One year, we’d just been rehomed from a refuge. It was Christmas and we had nothing - no furniture or anything.
“On Christmas morning, the people that ran the refuge knocked on the door with a bin bag of second hand stuff. Some little heart shaped, puffy smelly things you put in your knicker drawer and some baked beans. There was also this Batman game. I was eternally grateful to them for these gifts.
“When I was earning a lot of money, I took my children to a refuge and gave out presents to the children.
“My children have never wanted for anything, but they are very grounded and down to earth.”
She says she still tries to do her bit by buying food bags and donating any unwanted clothes to charity as she knows first-hand what it’s like to go without.
“Every time I go to Morrison’s now I buy a food bag,” she says. “It’s given to someone who needs it. I think it’s essential we all do our bit.
“I’m blessed as I was able to turn my life around financially. I’ve been given second chances. But I’ll never forget to help somebody. I give all my old clothes to charity. I remember having my clothes bought from car boot sales.
“All my friends had Reebok jumpers and I had these three jumpers. I got some wool and tried to sew ‘Reebok’ on them. One pair of shoes I was given gave me verrucas”.
At the very least, she says, no child should be allowed to go hungry.
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