Kerry Katona, 45, Lost Her £250,000 Iceland Deal Overnight and Went Bankrupt Twice — How She Rebuilt Her Life with 5 Kids

Kerry Katona lost a £250,000 deal overnight, went bankrupt twice, and had her nose surgically rebuilt after cocaine destroyed it. This is how she survived it all.

A surgeon once had to take cartilage from Kerry Katona's rib to rebuild the nose that cocaine had slowly eaten away. That single detail — bone harvested from her own body to repair the damage — tells you more about the cost of her addiction than any tabloid headline ever did.

'My Mum Told Me It Was Sherbert'

Born on 6 September 1980 in Warrington, Kerry did not have the kind of childhood one would wish on anyone. Her mother, Sue, was perpetually suicidal — frequently attempting to overdose — while Kerry grew up quietly absorbing a question no child should ever have to ask: Am I not good enough for her to want to stay alive?

It was Sue who first gave Kerry drugs at the age of 14, passing off speed as sherbert.

"I adore my mom, I love my mom but, you know, we've had our ups and downs — my mom wasn't really a mom. And you know, she told me it was speed, and it was sherbert. I thought that was normal," Kerry recalled during her 2024 appearance on ITV's "Good Morning Britain".

When asked why her mother would do such a thing, Kerry's answer was characteristically generous: Sue "wasn't well". And despite everything that addiction would go on to cost her — her face, her finances, her career — she refused to carry bitterness about it.

"It is what it is. It's happened. I can't sit with regret, I can't sit with hatred. I have to accept people for who they are," she said. That instinct to survive, and to refuse the weight of resentment, would be tested many times over in the years ahead.

Atomic Kitten, Fame, and the Spiral

By her late teens, Kerry had found her escape route: music. She became a founding member of Atomic Kitten, the Liverpool girl group that broke into the charts in the early 2000s.

She left the band in 2001 — the same year her eldest daughter, Molly, was born — and went on to win ITV's "I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!" in 2004. For a brief, dazzling moment, it looked like Kerry had made it.

But stardom often comes with its own particular cruelties. A string of marriages played out in public: first to Westlife's Brian McFadden, with whom she had Molly (2001) and Lilly-Sue (2003); then to taxi driver Mark Croft, father of Heidi (2007) and Maxwell (2008).

The paparazzi followed her everywhere. The tabloids never looked away. And through it all, cocaine became, in her own words, her best friend.

"Cocaine was my best friend, it was my crutch. It gave me the support I needed when I needed it," she told GBT. She also disclosed that she had overdosed on multiple occasions — and had once taken another line as soon as she recovered.

Even as the holes began to form in her nose, she kept using.

The £250,000 Deal That Died in 48 Hours

By the mid-2000s, Kerry had become the face of Iceland, the budget supermarket chain. The contract was reportedly worth £250,000, and for four years she fronted its advertising campaigns.

Iceland stood by her through her personal difficulties, through the tabloid storms, and even through her first bankruptcy — declared at the High Court in London on 21 August 2008, when she was just 27 years old, following her failure to pay the remaining £82,000 of a £417,000 tax bill.

Then came October 2008, and a disastrous appearance on ITV's "This Morning". Kerry appeared on screen slurring her words, visibly disoriented. She maintained she had simply taken her prescription medication for bipolar disorder four hours late the previous night.

Her husband at the time, Mark, later issued a statement insisting the only thing she had drunk before the show was cups of tea. Presenter Phillip Schofield denied any ambush, saying Kerry had arrived too late for producers to assess her condition before she went live on air.

Iceland expressed its displeasure but held on — partly, it was understood, because its expensive Christmas adverts had already been filmed. Then, in August 2009, the now-defunct tabloid News of the World published photographs and video footage it said showed Kerry snorting cocaine in the bathroom of her home in Wilmslow, Cheshire.

That was it. Within 48 hours, Iceland announced her dismissal, saying it was now "impossible" for her to continue as one of its advertising faces. The supermarket added, carefully, that it would continue to try to help ensure she received appropriate support.

Going Bust — Twice

The first bankruptcy, in 2008, was financial chaos laid bare in court. By the time of her second, filed on 2 July 2013 at her local County Court in Wigan, it was almost a pattern. She was 33.

The payday loans company Cash Lady, which had signed her as its spokesperson on the basis that its customers could relate to her financial difficulties, promptly dropped her — citing a commitment to responsible lending.

A television advert for the same company had already been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority earlier that year, after viewers complained it encouraged people struggling financially to take on more debt.

Labour MP Stella Creasy called it out at the time, saying she was "surprised to see somebody who understands what it's like to be in debt promoting a type of debt that we know causes debt."

On the morning she filed, Kerry tweeted:

"Hold your head high and be proud, never be ashamed! Always try your best and believe in yourself!"

George Kay: Childhood Sweethearts, Then a Nightmare

Kerry and George Kay had known each other since they were teenagers at Padgate High School in Warrington. They were childhood sweethearts, reunited in their early 30s and married in 2014, just months after the birth of their daughter Dylan-Jorge — also known as DJ.

The marriage lasted 12 months. Kerry accused George of being violent and abusive, and the relationship ended with a restraining order in place to keep him away from her.

His decline was severe. In the days before his 2019 death, George had been staying at a Holiday Inn in Sutton Weaver, Cheshire. Police had been called just 12 hours before he died, following reports of him wandering the hotel corridors asking strangers to be his friend.

He became gravely ill after ingesting cocaine — reportedly crushing a ball of it inside a sock and eating the contents. He was rushed to hospital, where he died. He was 39. He had not seen his daughter DJ for over a year.

At the inquest, held at Warrington Coroner's Court in August 2021, George's family laid some of the blame with Kerry.

His brother Ashley Kay claimed George's drug use had escalated during their marriage and worsened significantly after the separation, attributing it to George being prevented from seeing his child.

Kerry's own feelings were more complicated. Speaking on the "Best" podcast in September, she admitted she was angry when he passed.

"I was like, 'How dare you? How dare you put us through all this trauma that you've now left with my children?'" she said. But she also acknowledged the impossible bind of loving someone you cannot save. "I always wanted to save him. I always tried to save him and I couldn't."

The Rib Cartilage, and 14 Years Clean

By 2024, Kerry had been clean from cocaine for 14 years. That year, she underwent plastic surgery to rebuild her septum and the bridge of her nose, which had collapsed after years of drug abuse.

The surgeon used cartilage harvested from her own rib to carry out the repair. She was even happy for "Good Morning Britain's" Richard Madeley to take a close look at the results on air.

She has been open with all five of her children — Molly, Lilly-Sue, Heidi, Maxwell, and DJ — about everything that happened.

"It's out there, everywhere," she said. "With the internet you cannot protect kids from what is going on. I would rather they hear it all from me than someone else."

Her own childhood — with the mother who struggled to be present in the ways that mattered most — drives everything about how she parents.

"The one thing I will never have my kids ever feel is that pain of not feeling loved by their mum," she said. "And the one thing my kids know is how much I love them. I'm there for them no matter what."

Still Here

Today Kerry is 45 and happily together with Paolo Margaglione, whom she met on the celebrity dating show "Celebs Go Dating". By her own account, she is content — and she is grateful.

"I'm so blessed. I woke up this morning. How lucky am I?" she told listeners of the "Best" podcast. "I should have been dead. I OD'd several times on cocaine and I should be dead. And I've worked so hard on myself. The work I've put into myself — I'm really proud of, and I do it every day."

The nose rebuilt from her own rib. The two bankruptcies. The career that ended overnight. The marriage that ended in heartbreak and left a little girl without her father.

Kerry has lived through more specific, visceral collapse than most people will encounter in a lifetime — and she is, improbably, still standing, still talking, still refusing to be defined by any of it.

That, in the end, might be the most remarkable thing about her.