Kerry Katona has opened up about her troubled love life, admitting she believed Brian McFadden was her “forever” before his stag night betrayal
Kerry Katona has made the heartbreaking admission that her hopes of being “rescued” by marrying Westlife star Brian McFadden were shattered by his infidelity before their wedding day.
The former Atomic Kitten singer, who shot to fame at the turn of the millennium as part of the chart-topping girl group, reflected on a life shaped by turbulent relationships and an enduring search for stability.
Speaking to The Times, the 45-year-old admitted she had long been seeking a father figure in her partners. “Of course I did. I have had five serious relationships in 30 years,” she said.
Katona was just 18 when she met McFadden, at a time when both were young, famous and at the height of their careers. The couple went on to marry in a lavish OK! magazine wedding in 2002 that appeared to cement their fairytale romance.
“I thought he was my ‘for ever’. We were puppies, babies, back then,” she recalled. “I wanted him to be my knight in shining armour and rescue me from my old life.”
That illusion was shattered, she said, when McFadden slept with a stripper on his stag do. The couple split in 2004 when Brian allegedly came clean and admitted he didn’t love Kerry anymore in a tense phone call.
The betrayal marked the beginning of a dramatic personal decline for Katona, who was already struggling under the pressure of fame. At the time, she was one of the most recognisable faces in British pop, balancing chart success with Atomic Kitten and a growing media profile.
“It was so bad. I was very famous at the time, so I had to be shipped to Arizona for therapy,” she said. The Whole Again singer described recounting her traumatic life experiences as if they were lines from a script. “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.”
Despite the pain of her first marriage, Katona went on to have children with McFadden, Molly and Lilly-Sue, becoming a mother at a young age while navigating intense public scrutiny. Motherhood would remain a constant through the ups and downs of her personal life.
She later married taxi driver Mark Croft, a relationship she has described as chaotic and damaging. “That should have been a one-night stand but I’m eternally grateful he gave me two amazing children, Heidi and Max,” she said. During that period, Croft sold stories about her to the tabloids, and Katona was declared bankrupt. “I was reliving my childhood. It was a toxic, dark time.”
Source: Mirror
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