Kerry Katona believes she ‘let my kids down’ by staying in abusive marriage to George Kay

The former Atomic Kitten star was married to her third husband George from September 2014 until they divorced in October 2015. The pair share a daughter, Dylan-Jorge ‘DJ’ (8).

Kerry is also mum to Molly (21) and Lilly-Sue (19) from her marriage to Brian McFadden, as well as son Maxwell (14), who she shares with ex Mark Croft.

In July 2019, Kay collapsed and died after a drug overdose.

Opening up about her abusive relationship with Kay, the 42-year-old admitted that she feels like she “let my kids down” by staying with him for so long.

“The fear from George was so severe... Lilly and Molly would come home from school and I would tell them to go upstairs because of George. I'll never forgive myself for that. They never saw anything, but they heard a lot.

“Molly gave me a look of pure weakness once and I thought, ‘What am I teaching my kids?’

“There's the shame as well, there's such a shame that I held onto it for so long because I feel like I let my kids down. Because I know that they are messed up because of it as well.

“I have George's little girl. Lilly and Molly can go to Brian and it's the same with Mark, whenever they want, but DJ hasn't got that choice.”

Kerry said her mum Sue was also aware that Kay was abusive after she caught a glimpse of her bruises.

“It's not about blame, it’s a fear. It's so difficult, my mum said she was waiting on police to knock on the door and say he’d killed me.

"I remember one time George was covering up my bruises and my mum was looking and going 'What are those bruises from?' And I was like 'Oh, it's from having rough sex, Mum.'

"And he looked at my mum and my mum said that he knew that she knew.”

The TV personality appeared on Loose Women to speak about her new memoir, Kerry Katona: Whole Again – Love, Life and Me.

Discussing the book, she said: “I'm only 42 but I've packed a lot in. The first book was more about my childhood, foster home, second was bankruptcy. Gosh, we could be here all day.

“What a lot of people don't understand, I ended up in a foster home because my mum's fella beat her up and I said I would never do it. I ended up putting my kids through it and it gives me anxiety now, I panic. It has still got a hold on me.”