Kerry Katona has opened up about the drama surrounding her latest marriage split, after ending things with George Kay a month ago.
And she says that in the end, things came to a head because of some conversations with her (very sensible-sounding) daughters, Molly, 16, and Lilly-Sue, 14.
“I feel like the worst mother in the world and I will never forgive myself,” Kerry, 36, told the Sunday People.
“No child should have to hear what they heard or see what they saw.
“I sat my Molly and Lilly down because they’re older and all I could do was profusely apologise to them.
“I said to the girls, ‘I’m so sorry I’ve let this go on for so long.’
“They said, ‘Why are you standing for this? Just leave him.’”
Kerry says that it was particularly difficult to hear that from her daughters after being in the same position with her own mother as a child.
And although in this instance there were no ‘hidings’, that didn’t mean that former boxer George, 37, didn’t exert control in other ways.
“He would spit in my face all the time and I would think that’s OK because he’s not giving me a hiding,” she says.
“But it’s one of the most degrading things you can have done to you.
“George likes to hold a grudge. He didn’t like me having friends. He wanted me all to himself.
“There were arguments all the time. Even my relationship with my children went on hold because he wanted all of my attention.”
Kerry also spoke out about the alarming story earlier this month about George being found naked and out-of-it on a rooftop in Formby, Merseyside.
“He was just lying there stark naked screaming about something. Most of it was pretty incoherent but every now and then he screamed, ‘help me’,” a source told The Daily Star.
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“He shouted something about someone trying to shoot him. There was a group of people and police standing in the garden trying to reason with him.”
Kerry told the Sunday People: “For me that was the nail in the coffin. I just thought, you’re a dad, have some self-control.
“He has had so much power over me for so long, but I can’t let my children go back to that, even if I could.”
The incident came after Kerry and George ended their relationship for the second time. They got back together last October after spending eleven months apart, with George facing allegations of assault.
Kerry withdrew the charges and the case was dropped in July 2016.
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The former couple have a daughter, Dylan-Jorge – known as DJ – together and before the split Kerry had said they were trying for another baby.
“Yes, we are [trying]. We haven’t been careful, put it that way!… I’ll be more than happy to find I’m pregnant.
“George is desperate for another child. I’ll have one more and that’s your lot!”
But last month George moved out of the house he shared with Kerry, DJ and Kerry’s other four children, Molly, Lilly-Sue, Max and Heidi, in Sussex.
Now, Kerry said she’s determined to learn lessons from what’s happened to her in this relationship.
“I should have seen the warning signs and walked away,” she said.
“I don’t want my daughters to think it’s acceptable to be in a relationship like that or for my son to think it’s acceptable to treat women that way either.”
And now Kerry’s excited about starting a ‘new chapter’.
“I feel like my life is about to begin for the better,” she told the Sunday People.
George denies any violence towards Kerry.