Kerry Katona struggled with her dyslexia for many years (Picture: REX)
Kerry Katona has revealed needed help reading and writing until she was in her twenties.
Now aged 42, Kerry has shared that Atomic Kitten’s manager had to read out restaurant menus to her back in the day.
It wasn’t until the reality star actually moved to Ireland in the early 2000s with ex-husband Brian McFadden that she gained her literacy skills.
While Brian – who Kerry was married to from 2002 until 2004 – was on tour with Westlife, she booked herself onto typing courses.
Kerry made the revelation while chatting to Ireland AM on Virgin Media One.
‘I remember when I first moved to Ireland with Brian, I was pregnant, I couldn’t read or write. I was dyslexic,’ she began.
The reality star needed help reading restaurant menus while in Atomic Kitten (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
‘With Brian being on tour all the time, I did a typing course and I taught myself how to read and write properly.’
Host Muireann O’Connell responded by saying she was ‘astounded’ to learn that about Kerry.
‘That’s amazing to have done that,’ she praised.
Kerry went on to recall how dyslexia – a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling – affected her in the girl group.
‘Being in Atomic Kitten, bearing in mind I had four sets of foster parents, three refuges, I went to eight different schools which I was very rarely in because my mum never let me go to school really, I couldn’t even spell the word “orange” at one point,’ she shared.
‘I remember we were in a restaurant with Atomic Kitten and I couldn’t read the restaurant, our manager had to read it for me.’
Kerry booked herself onto typing courses to help her learn to read and write (Picture: Richard Young/REX/Shutterstock)
The singer left Atomic Kitten in 2001 (Picture: Alan Davidson/Shutterstock)
Kerry added: ‘I’ll never forget, we were in a Mexican restaurant and Liz (McClarnon) ordered fajitas and I was like, “Oh my God, she’s going to eat a dead baby.” Fejitas, fetus. That’s how uneducated I was with food.’
Kerry left Atomic Kitten in 2001 when she became pregnant with first child Molly, who is now 21.
Overcoming her struggles with dyslexia, she went on to pen several books, with the most recent – Kerry Katona: Whole Again: Love, Life and Me – released in 2023.
She is also now a mum to four other children from her three marriages.
As well as Molly, she shares Lilly-Sue with Brian.
She has Heidi Elizabeth and Maxwell Mark with Mark Croft, and her youngest, Dylan-Jorge, with late husband George Kay.
She was married to first husband Brian McFadden from 2002 until 2004 (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)
Kerry is now a mum to five kids (Picture: Instagram)
Following his death, Kerry revealed in March this year how her fiancé Ryan Mahoney had adopted DJ as his own daughter.
There actually could’ve been a chance of Kerry’s offspring following in her reality TV footsteps, as one daughter had the opportunity to appear on Love Island.
However, Lilly-Sue turned the ITV dating show down, not once, but twice.
While Kerry initially encouraged Lilly to head to the villa, her daughter decided against participating on the show because it’s ‘just not her’.
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Her manager had to help her read restaurant menus.
