Kerry: “It’s taken a lot to get back on good terms with Brian”
Kerry Katona opens up to Closer about the real reason she’s reunited with ex Brian Mcfadden after years of feuding
She’s suffered a notoriously stormy relationship with first husband Brian Mcfadden since their marriage split in 2004 – with the pair engaging in a number of bitter public spats over the years.
But Kerry Katona has recently appeared on more amicable terms with Brian, 38, even cheering him on from the audience – along with their daughters Molly, 17, and Lilly-sue, 16 – as he performs on Dancing On Ice.
The exes also appeared to be the perfect blended family when Brian cuddled up to Kerry’s daughter Heidi, 11, and son Max, 10, from her marriage to second husband Mark Croft, and five-year-old daughter DylanJorge, from her third husband George Kay, for a selfie backstage.
HATRED & REVENGE
Talking to Closer last week, Kerry, 38, admits it’s been a long journey to get her friendship back on track with her ex.
She says, “Brian and I are on good terms and it’s taken us a hell of a long time to get to where we are. When you split up with someone, there’s a massive change of character on both sides. There’s a lot of hatred, revenge and you see things in the other person that you’ve never seen.
“I blamed Brian for so many years for so many things and for my downfall. I blamed him for my decision to marry my second husband Mark, I told him it was entirely his fault. But I felt like a failure as a wife and a failure as mum. My children were no longer living with two parents and I blamed myself for that.”
After forgiving Brian for cheating on her during his stag do with a stripper in 2001, Kerry was left devastated when he walked out on their marriage just two years later, telling her he had fallen for Australian singer Delta Goodrem.
Kerry said, “He was the love of my life. I’m not going to deny it. It was the first time I had a baby with somebody, the first time I got married. It’s all the firsts.”
In 2008, Kerry reportedly blamed her premature labour with son Max on the anxiety caused by the late return of daughters Molly and Lilly-sue from a visit to Brian – causing him to blast her as a “disgusting human being” and an “embarrassment to me, my family and my children.”
A year later, amid a custody battle between the pair, Kerry insisted the former Westlife singer was an absent father, saying at the time, “He phones the girls about five times a year, but Lilly doesn’t really know who he is. I’ve never told them what really happened.” Brian – who went on to marry Irish model Vogue Williams in 2012 before splitting three years later, and is currently in a relationship with PE teacher Danielle Parkinson – furiously denied her claims and called Kerry a “pig-faced mole”.
Kerry revealed the pair had become more amicable after Brian’s split from Delta in 2011, but insisted his romance with second wife Vogue had come between them again – saying, “What p***es me off is that when he does fall in love, the kids come second. And that’s why I think he’s a w***er.” And last month, Kerry told Closer that her daughters “aren’t keen” on former step-mother Vogue.
POSITIVE MINDSET
But following Kerry’s split from ex-con George in August 2017, she embraced a more positive mindset and slowly transformed her life by shedding 2st through regular exercise and healthy eating.
She says now, “You have to get to a point in your life where you let go of that anger, you hold your hands up and you accept responsibility for your own actions, or else you can become a very bitter and twisted person. I wish Brian all the love and happiness in the world. He deserves it, just as I deserve it.
“Brian’s girlfriend, Danielle, has helped massively. His other exes wouldn’t give me the time of day, even though I was the mother of his kids. I understand that when you’re with someone, you need to respect their wishes and obviously Brian did respect Vogue and Delta’s wishes. But Danielle is so understanding and completely gets it. I was talking to her at Dancing On Ice and we were both saying how nice it is for us all to sit there together for the first time. I even texted Brian the next day saying how lovely it was for me to be with him, Danielle and the kids.”
GRATEFUL
And Kerry – who split from her boyfriend of five months, Ryan Mahoney, in October and recently sparked rumours she was getting close to Celebs Go Dating co-star Pete Wicks – admits she’s thankful for her failed marriages. She says, “I’m grateful to my ex-husbands – I got three sets of amazing kids from them. If I do find somebody, they have to accept me for who I am and not try to control me. Right now, I’m just enjoying dating. I’ve always been in a relationship and the more dates I go on, the more I learn about myself. I’m the strongest and most confident I’ve been in a long time.”
‘His exes wouldn’t give me the time of day’
Kerry is starring in Celebs Go Dating, coming soon to E4