Katie:
“I wrote a will – I was scared I was going to die”
She’s a single mum to her 23-month-old son, Hudson, and Katie Waissel admits she was so frightened when they both fell ill with suspected COVID-19 in March that she wrote a will. The X Factor star – who moved back to the UK from America in 2018, after splitting from the father of her son – ended up in hospital and says she was scared for their lives.
“It was such a frightening experience,” she explains. “Hudson was really ill – his breathing had shallowed and his temperature was 40º, so I called an ambulance. At the same time, I was feeling really unwell – I had a continuous cough and couldn’t catch my breath. When it’s just Hudson and me, it makes you think, ‘What if I die? What’s going to happen to Hudson?’ It was overwhelming and scary.”
VULNERABLE
At this point, tests weren’t readily available, so after being monitored, Katie and Hudson were sent home to isolate, just as the rest of the country went into lockdown. But she admits that in the midst of the ordeal, the experience made her face her own mortality.
“I had to stay strong during the day, but I was a mess when Hudson was in bed at night,” she says. “I felt scared and vulnerable being on my own, and we were ill for about a month.”
And her decision to write a will was the toughest part. “I was bawling my eyes out writing it – my heart was in pieces,” Katie admits. “I wanted to make sure Hudson was in the best hands if anything were to happen to me. My biggest fear is not being here for him.”
Once she’d recovered, Katie says she found much of lockdown tough as a single mum, and admits to struggling seeing Hudson’s father, fitness trainer Andy Speer, enjoying himself on social media in America.
ALONE
“There have been times where I’ve wanted to throw my phone out of the window, especially on the days I was finding it hard,” she says. “I watched him doing Instagram workouts with his partner, while I was in and out of hospitals with our son, afraid I was going to die. It took a few conversations between him and me, but we have a good relationship now and he has been here emotionally for us. When I was in hospital with Hudson, I rang Andy and said, ‘I’m scared, I need you to stay on the line so I don’t feel alone’. Both Andy and I have worked really hard to get to this point.”
The 34 year old reveals that the one thing that’s helped her mental health during the pandemic has been making time for fitness.
“At the beginning of lockdown, I found it hard not having time to myself, but then
I changed my mindset and started making time to exercise. While Hudson slept, I’d do a workout, or if he refused his nap, I’d pop him in the lightweight buggy and go for a run. It made me feel so much better.”
DATING AGAIN
Now Katie’s thoughts have turned to the future, and she says she’d like to start dating. The singer has been married twice – to model Brad Alphonso in 2012 and comedian Brian Moote in 2015. With both relationships ending in divorce, Katie then met Hudson’s father Andy, from whom she split shortly after giving birth.
“I’m ready to meet someone now!” she says. “I’d like to be a in a relationship, but marriage is neither here nor there for me – I’ve done it so many times! Marriage doesn’t make for a happy relationship; that’s something I’ve learned. It’s just a case of finding the right person now. I’m on Hinge (a dating app) –it’s fun to have a look and see what’s out there, but I’m so tired I barely have time to message my friends these days!”
But Katie isn’t relying on meeting a new man in order to have another baby, and says
‘My biggest fear is not being here for my son’
she would consider artificial insemination with her ex, Andy, in order to have a full sibling for Hudson.
“I would love to have another baby, but I would want them to be Hudson’s full DNA,” she explains. “Andy and I have joked about it many times and I’ve said to ‘just FedEx it over’! If I wasn’t ready to meet anybody but I wanted to have another baby, then potentially it’s something I would do. Why not? I’d have another baby with brilliant DNA!”
By Annabelle Lee