Kerry Katona suffered decades of press abuse after being thrust into the spotlight as part of the band Atomic Kitten when she was just 18 years old.

Growing up without parental support and in foster care, her upbringing, young age and gender made her a prime target for newspapers and wider media who used every opportunity to exploit her personal problems and private life to make money.

In this interview with Emma Jones she describes how, she is coming to terms with the trauma and impact caused by the tabloid press, which left her angry, traumatised and even suicidal.

Now, aged 44, she talks about how that experience still manifests in her life today.

‍

How would you describe your experience with the British press? 

"Like an abusive relationship, like a domestic violence relationship that you can’t seem to walk away from. It reminds me a lot of relationship with my husband George.”

"Kerry’s husband of three years, George Kay died in 2019 following a drug overdose. During the marriage she explained how she was experiencing horrific domestic abuse at the hands of her deceased former husband. 

"It’s almost like a dating game, isn’t it? When you first meet someone, you’re nice and kind to them and you show them your best parts and your good side, and the press did that with me. 

"And they put you on a pedestal just like George did. And then it’s like you get comfortable, and you get lazy, and they just want to bring you off that pedestal, and it becomes so abusive, so violent, so torturous, so mentally and emotionally draining that you can’t even end that relationship because they won’t allow you to end it. 

"It got to a point that I actually wanted to end my own life. That’s the only way I can describe it to you.”

‍

What was it like when you discovered your phone had been hacked? 

Kerry received damages from the Mirror Group recently and News of the World, following claims they had tried to intercept voice messages. Her ex-partner Dave Cunningham also received substantial damages from the two news organisations and did her ex-husband BrianMcFadden.

“I think it was Dan Evans, who grassed who was a whistle-blower who turned around and said you really need to look into Kerry Katona. 

(Ex-News of the World reporter Dan Evans came forward with information about criminal activities he engaged in, following his arrest for phone hacking at the News of the World.) 

“And I remember Scotland Yard turning up to the Mayfair hotel and I was like ‘I don’t know what’s going on here?’ And my name was at the top of the list, above Prince Harry and Prince William. It was almost like a given. The most hacked people were Prince Harry, Prince William and me!"

Kerry believes the News of the World, specifically went after her to provoke more behaviour which might make news content. She said the hounding was so bad that she felt the paper may have been ready to report on her death.

To this day believe the News of the World had a headline ready to go ready to send, ‘Kerry found dead.” I think that’s what they wanted.

‍

“The News of the World made me more famous than anything, more than any show, more than any band, more than anything, Saturday would come, I would get a phone call ‘This is coming out about you tomorrow.”

“Every weekend I’d be a wreck and the only thing that I could turn to, that I thought was my friend was coke (cocaine)because there was no one else there. Because I didn’t trust anybody, I’ve got everybody selling stories on me, I was all alone. And how I got through that I don’t know.To this day I’m still struggling with these anger issues you know and it’s probably just now leaking out that it’s ruining the best thing I’ve ever had in my life.”

“It’s trauma its PTSD it’s something you never get over.”

“I don’t want to use that word but It’s almost like you get raped. but I feel violated, I feel dirty… Somebody, the papers paid somebody to put a camera in my bathroom the picture of me doing cocaine in my bathroom was in the News of the World.” 

”I hadn’t even touched anything in a month me and Mark (Kerry’s then husband Mark Croft who she married in 2006) had split up and I had this guy he was saying.. (sic) look, I didn’t want anything.”

“And he said he had information about who the girl he cheated on me was…I don’t want anything I didn’t want anything; it was all planted.”

‍

How did the journalist do that?

“It wasn’t a journalist they paid somebody who I knew, you see what I’m saying that’s what they do.”

‍

How did the thought of someone accessing your personal information make you feel?

“It massively affects me to the point where if I go to the bathroom in public spaces, I always have one of my children with me. 

“I don’t like taking my handbag with me. I almost get undressed before I walk in the toilet because of people because I’m so aware and so paranoid because mud sticks.

‍

Do you think there is an expectation that famous people are fair game for the press?

“People say, well what do you expect? You sold your baby pictures to OK magazine, so we have every right.

“So ok then so if you show me a picture of your family on your mobile phone, does that then give me the right to snatch your phone off you and then go through all the pictures on your phone? No, it doesn’t. 

“I don’t know what’s going on my neighbour’s houses.The papers knew I went into bankruptcy before I did.”

“Just because I did pictures for Ok magazine with my baby, it doesn’t give you the right to hide in my bushes.

Did you try to complain at any point?

“They have that official place where you put a complaint in, don’t you, IPSO.

“You put a complaint in, and they don’t do anything, what’s the point in that? It doesn’t do anything.

“You know how many times I made complaints?(sic) It doesn’t do anything. What’s the fucking point?”

“I’m going to get upset now, because I have so many abandonment issues and trust issues, so that when you get these reporters, that you don’t even know, and I have never even met, go and hack you and tell everything to the world that you feel so alone. 

“And you don’t know who to trust, and that was years ago but it’s still happening and it’s still affected me, to the point that I’ve got actually everything I have ever wanted, and yet, I’ve got all this anger, and all this injustice I feel, and it’s not because of the money, it’s because its unjust because it’s not fair, you couldn’t make this shit up you couldn’t write that.

Hugh Grant couldn’t even star in a film that was written that fucking good because it sounds so unbelievable.” 

Do you believe your gender and upbringing  played a part in why you were targeted so specifically and relentlessly.

“This (sic) was the days when you’d get in taxi and the paparazzi would put a camera up your skirt. And that was acceptable. It was always the girl who was the one slept around. 

"It was always the woman’s fault if she had a baby with somebody else and she already had a baby with somebody else. And even to this day that’s the case. Look at Boris Johnson, how many kids does he have? To how many women? His last kid, the nation applauded him.

"Many men have got so many kids, but I’m the one who’s looked after them, I might not have done the greatest of jobs but I’ve done my best and I’ve always been there.

“Yet in society it’s us women who get the shit for it. But no matter how hard it’s been I’ve stuck by I’ve not run away from it I’ve stayed with the children, all my exes just left.

“I think as well because I’m not a thespian,I’m not theatrically trained, you know I’m not educated, I’m not academic but I’m very educated and well informed and very intelligent. 

“I’m dyslexic but it didn’t stop me doing a column in the Guardian and The Independent did it? I actually called it 'Thick As Shit' They made me change the title of it but for me it was all about how, in society they do put you in a box, and I’ve got imposter syndrome.

“I think you get put in a box from society and that it’s a given to kick somebody who is from a working-class background, who is from a council estate. 

“Its Kerry Katona so its ok that we can give her so much shit. Its like the shit I get on Only Fans and its like, hang on have you seen Bridgerton? Have you you soon the sex scenes, I don’t do anything like that but its ok to give me the shit like that 

“How many sex scenes have actresses done. I don’t do that, but I get shot for it. But I’m doing the same thing by making money.

“It’s the same thing I’m faking it’s all smoke and mirrors its performance its acting but because I’m from a council estate because I had foster parents and because I had a drug problem and because I did this its ok to put me down. 

Do you think there are double standards then?

“I think it was Rod Stewart I saw on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories and Rod Stewart was talking about ‘Oh back in the in the day I was doing all these drugs and I was having orgies’ and Piers is laughing and Rod’s going on about all these different kids…

“If I was to go on there on Piers Morgan and say,‘Oh I was doing all these drugs and having orgies with all these men, he’d be on the phone to social services because I’m a woman and I’m a mother.”