Kerry Katona talks for the first time about her ex-husband Brian McFadden, his lack of involvement with their two children and his relationship with Delta Goodrem. Louise Gannon reports.
Brian McFadden is riding high on a new wave of success with his judging role on Australia’s Got Talent, but according to his ex-wife, former British pop star Kerry Katona, he has so little involvement with their two children, that their seven-year-old daughter Lilly-Sue “doesn’t know who he is”, and he only phones five times a year.
Insisting she has left her battle with drugs behind for good after her recent split from second husband Mark Croft, and revealing she now has her bipolar disorder under control thanks to a healthy new lifestyle, Kerry says things are starting to improve again between her and Brian.
She says she is hopeful he will become more involved with their kids.
But throughout her last marriage, Kerry had to face a barrage of criticism from 30-year-old Brian, who lives 16,000km away from his daughters, Molly, 8, and Lilly-Sue, in Sydney.
“On a couple of occasions his mum tried to go for legal custody, but never Brian,” Kerry told Britain’s News of the World, insisting she never badmouths Brian to the kids, and denying reports she took cocaine while pregnant. “However bad I was, I always knew my children were safe,” she told the paper. “I always kept the drugs away from my kids.
“I do the homework with them, bath them, put the right bear in their arms to sleep with, pick them up from school, do the parents’ evenings.
“Brian just isn’t interested like that. “He phones the girls about five times a year. I don’t want to slag him off because he is their dad but whenever I’m in trouble he lays into me.
“Lilly doesn’t even really know who he is. Molly still thinks he left me because I changed my hair colour. I’ve never told them what really happened, that he left me for another woman.
“Brian has never wanted custody of the girls. If there’s a problem I can hardly ever get hold of him. I have to go through his parents, who I have to say are amazing. They dote on the girls. But Brian has a new life in Australia now.
“I’m not bitter. I’m just sad for him. He has to live with himself about it. He’s missing out on two amazing little girls.”
For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.
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