Kerry Katona has faced a lot of heartache over the years and the star has announced she is single again after splitting from her fiancé Ryan Mahoney.
Katona, 44 and Mahoney, 36, had been together for six years after matching on dating app Bumble. After spending much of lockdown together, they got engaged in 2021. The exes had plans to tie the knot in Las Vegas but just days before announcing their split, Katona hinted there were problems between them as she said they had been arguing “like cat and dog”.
In October, she told OK! magazine: “Ryan and I have been arguing like cat and dog too so we’ve not had the best time. We’re not in a great place at the moment. I do like to be honest when things are like this, though, because no one is perfect and everyone has their issues. I’d much rather be real about it.”
Katona broke the news of her split when she told a fan she was single in a social media exchange. When approached by Yahoo News for comment, her representative had no comment at the moment.
In February, Katona said she was happy to give Mahoney a free pass to have a baby with another woman as she wasn’t going to go through pregnancy for a sixth time. She told the magazine: “I don’t want to deprive him in fact, I’ve given him a pass and said, “If this is something you want to pursue, leave me now!”
We take a look back over the years of Katona being unlucky in love and how it has played out in the spotlight.
Brian McFadden
Atomic Kitten and Westlife’s 1999 tour meant Katona’s path crossed with Brian McFadden for the first time.
It wasn’t long before they fell in love and three months after meeting they got engaged. They tied the knot in a wedding that was a huge showbiz affair in 2002 and their big day was billed as a “world exclusive” on the frontpage of HELLO! magazine.
Katona had her former Atomic Kitten bandmates as her bridesmaids while McFadden’s former Westlife bandmates Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan, Mark Feehily and Kian Egan were among the star-studded guestlist. S Club 7 and Ronan Keating also were in attendance.
Their marriage broke down after two years and they split in 2004.
They continue to co-parent their children Molly and Lilly-Sue together. Lilly-Sue is soon moving to Ireland to live with her grandparents, a move Katona said would be “good” for her daughter, and Molly has been living in Dublin for some time now.
Dave Cunningham
Worlds away from the glamorous showbiz romance with McFadden, Katona set her sights on her childhood sweetheart Dave Cunningham. It was the second time she had got engaged but the couple didn’t make it down the aisle.
It was reported the pair had a fight in Spain but Cunningham insisted the row wasn’t the reason behind their break up.
“We have split up and it was me who ended it,” Dave told the now-defunct newspaper News of the World in 2005. “Things haven’t been great. It wasn’t over what happened in Spain – we patched things up after that. We had a laugh over it. Now I don’t know what’s happening – I don’t know if we’ll get back together.”
Mark Croft
Not long after her split from Cunningham, Katona found love with taxi driver Mark Croft in 2006 and they embarked on a whirlwind romance. They were engaged quickly too, weeks after meeting, but they would get married on Valentine’s Day in 2007. Katona and Croft had two children together, daughter Heidi and son Maxwell.
It was during their marriage in 2008 that Katona was declared bankrupt and she made her infamous appearance on This Morning where she was accused of being drunk for slurring her words — although she later revealed it was due to her medication for bipolar disorder.
Last year, Katona reflected on the interview telling Slingo’s Getting Lippy Gossip Show: “After my This Morning interview you thought I’d killed somebody and I’m just like I don’t understand what it is I’ve done so wrong? I’ve had speech therapy and I’ve got a lazy tongue and with my ADHD and way I talk sometimes I don’t pronounce the words properly. Then you put in the medication I was on and your speech is slurred and it’s like “oh she’s this, she’s that.””
Katona and Croft split in 2010.
George Kay
Katona met her next husband George Kay in 2012. Within months they were engaged when the former rugby player popped the question at the Blackpool Tower.
The year of 2014 was a rollercoaster year for the couple as they welcomed their daughter Dylan-Jorge and got married but then two months later, Kay was hospitalised with signs of a stroke and Katona initially struggled to cope.
Later, Katona took a restraining order out against Kay and she made shocking claims about experiencing domestic violence during their relationship. They were divorced in 2017.
Kay died from a drug overdose aged 38 in 2019.
In 2021, Katona said Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins helped her grieve her ex’s death. Ant Middleton interrogated her and she broke down in tears. She told the cameras: “My mister died last year of a drug overdose. He was really abusive, and it just took me back to feeling really worthless.”