Knife drama woman held
Katona admits drug abuse struggle amid move home
KERRY Katona admitted cocaine became her “best friend” after her marriage to Westlife’s Brian Mcfadden ended.
The former Atomic Kitten singer, 43, also told of her constructive nose surgery to repair damage caused by substance abuse.
Katona revealed her mother introduced her to drugs when she was a teenager by telling her speed was sherbet.
She has now been clean for 14 years and says she “can’t sit with regret” or “hatred” about the past.
On ITV’S Good Morning Britain yesterday, the mother-of-five said: “My first marriage crumbled, I moved back over to England.
“I think cocaine kind of became my crutch, it was my best friend. It gave me the support I needed when I needed it.”
The singer explained she could go months without drugs but whenever she started she would binge for a period.
Reflecting on how she started taking drugs, she recalled: “My mum wasn’t very well and it is what it is. I can’t sit with regret, I can’t sit with hatred. I have to accept people for who they are.
“For a very long time, I lived in a pity party. ‘Poor me, the world owes me a favour. It’s everyone else’s fault but mine’.
“But I have to hold my hands up, I have to take responsibility, let it go because otherwise, (its) like being in a rocking chair, going back and forth.”
Due to the drug use, a hole began to appear in her septum, which she said she aggravated as a form of “self-harm”.
Opening up about her recent surgery, Katona said: “My nose was collapsing at the front and as you grow older, your ears and your nose get bigger.
“So mine was changing shape because of the passings and the way I still used to blow my nose so they have taken cartilage from my rib to bring it back up and put my old nose how it used to be.”
Katona was married to singer Mcfadden from 2002 until 2006 and shares daughters Molly, 22, and 21-yearold Lilly-sue with him.
She went on to have Heidi, 16, and Max, 15, with second husband Mark Croft and also has 10-year-old daughter DJ with the late George Kay.
Katona also revealed she showed her DJ the hole before her op as she wanted to tell her about it rather than her read about it in the media.
“Parents buy magazines and I’d rather my children hear it from me and know what I have been through”, she said.
“There’s no burying children’s heads in the sand and trying to protect them, the internet is everywhere. I’m their friend and hopefully I put them off for life.”
A WOMAN has been charged with wielding a knife after an incident yesterday that left “kids panicking”.
Gardai rushed to the scene on Slademore Drive in Ard Na Griene in north Dublin after being alerted to the woman.
There were no injuries repoprted but the woman, aged in her 40s, was arrested and charged.
A Garda spokesman said: “She is due to appear before the district court at a later date.”