Kerry Katona reveals she developed alopecia after her stressful split from ex Ryan Mahoney and admits she still struggles with hair loss
Kerry, 44, and personal trainer Ryan, 36, separated in November after six years together, citing a 'breach of trust'.
Now, Kerry says she was left 'exhausted' by her heartache, which saw her hair fall out in clumps towards the back of her head while she performed a gruelling schedule on stage in Cheshire in a Cinderella pantomime.
'I was doing two to three shows a day, doing Christmas panto,' she told the Daily Mail of the gruelling pre-Christmas period.
'It was heartbreak, it was exhausting. I also got alopecia. It was really stressful.'
Asked if her hair had started to regrow yet, the former Atomic Kitten star said: 'No, I'm still bald,' explaining she still has a bald patch where her hair has not grown back.
Alopecia can be temporary or permanent, and can affect the entire body or just parts of the scalp.
Kerry confirmed her hair loss was confined to the scalp, as other areas such as her eyebrows were not affected.
However, she is handling the traumatic experience with typical resilience.
'It's only hair,' she said. 'It will grow back. I wear tape extensions because it all started falling out.'
Showing the shortest areas, she joked: 'I look like a cross between the Tiger King and Garth from Wayne's World.'
In 2021, Kerry described how her hair fell out due to the extensions she was wearing, which left her hair 'fine and wispy', though her most recent hair loss was due to stress.
After her heartbreak, Kerry is back dating again, after meeting personal trainer Paolo Margaglione while filming the upcoming series of Celebs Go Dating in Ibiza earlier this year.
While she and Ryan, who she credits with raising her youngest daughter DJ, are still 'good friends' and own businesses together, she said there is no chance of a reunion for the pair.
'I would never go back to him - not in a million years,' she said defiantly. 'I know my worth.'
'I don't want to slag any of my exes off. They all make you who you are for a reason,' she continued.
'But it was a slow burner. I hung on by the skin of my teeth. I was starved for conversation, emotional intelligence and emotional availability.
'I look at him like a little brother, I really do. He brought DJ up. And I can't live with resentment or regret or anger because that just makes me an unpleasant person. I want to be the best version I can be of me.
'I wake up every morning thinking: 'How lucky am I? I'm so blessed.'
Kerry said she was devastated when Ryan broke her trust, explaining cryptically that 'he ended up somewhere he should have been'.
But she joked that she was grateful for the 'heartbreak diet' that followed their break-up.
Kerry first appeared in Celebs Go Dating in 2019, before she started dating Ryan, who she met on a dating app.
Ryan proposed to mother-of-five Kerry during a family holiday to Spain in 2020.
Kerry has previously been married three times, first to Brian McFadden from 2002 to 2006, who she shares daughters Molly, 23, and Lilly-Sue, 22, with.
From 2007 to 2011, she was married to Mark Croft, who is father to her children Heidi, 18, and Max, 17.
From 2014 to 2017 she was married to George Kay, who fathered her youngest daughter, 11-year-old Dylan-Jorge, known as DJ. George died in 2019 of a drug overdose.
Viewers can see Kerry looking for love with the help of the Celebs Go Dating experts including Dr. Tara Suwinyattichaiporn next week.
Kerry features alongside a star-studded cast including Christine McGuinness, 37, S Club 7's Jon Lee, 43, Love Islander Olivia Hawkins, 30, and Mark 'The Beast' Labbett, 59, from The Chase.
The new series of Celebs Go Dating starts Monday, August 11, at 9pm on E4.
WHAT IS ALOPECIA?
Alopecia, which causes baldness, is thought to be an autoimmune disorder. The immune system - the body's defense system - turns on itself.
What are the symptoms?
'Typically, one or more small bald patches, about the size of a 50p piece, appear on the scalp. The hair can start to regrow at one site, while another bald patch develops. Hair may also begin to thin all over the head,' says Marilyn Sherlock, chairman of the Institute of Trichologists.
What causes it?
'For some reason, the body's immune system begins to attack its own hair follicles. Special white blood cells in the body, known as T-lymphocytes, cause the hair to stop growing,' she adds.
Can worry make it worse?
Stress has been shown to prolong the problem.
Is it an inherited condition?
There is strong evidence to suggest that alopecia, like other auto-immune diseases, runs in families. About 25 per cent of patients have a family history of the disorder.
Who gets it?
Alopecia areata usually affects teenagers and young adults, but it can affect people of any age. It is just as common among men as women.
Is there a cure?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- The Guardian
A new start after 60: I became a dancer at 68 – and will perform my first solo show at 82
At 82, Christine Thynne is an emerging artist. 'Risk! There's a colossal amount of risk,' Thynne says. She is about to perform her show, These Mechanisms, over three weeks at the Edinburgh fringe. While 'emerging' isn't a word often applied to artists in their 80s, Thynne says the description is appropriate. 'I wasn't there before,' she says. 'I wasn't a solo performer.' Thynne's show melds aspects of her life – she trained as a physiotherapist in the 1960s – along with other passions. Among her props are planks, stepladders and water. 'Things I shouldn't be doing,' she says. 'Moving scaffolding planks. Changing the shape of stepladders. Carrying water.' She enjoys sea kayaking, having progressed from being coached to paddling the Lofoten islands in Norway, in her 50s. 'Sliding up a wave, going down the other side – it was so exciting,' she says. But when she was browsing the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh, Scotland, where she lives, and saw a brochure for a class in Dance Base, Scotland's national centre for dance, she balked. The class was free for the over-60s, and Thynne was 68. 'I thought: 'Dare I?'' For many people, kayaking in open water would be scarier than joining a dance class, but 'in life', Thynne says, 'there are occasions when you can lose your self-confidence. You can lose your identity. I was very nervous, wondering could I do it, would I be good enough?' She had done a bit of ballet and tap growing up in the north-east of England, and loved sport. Not to compete, but because she 'loved the way the body moved'. At 16, she wrote to the chartered society of physiotherapists, and did a course on day release while working locally at Imperial Chemical Industries. 'I still love the way the body moves,' she says, 'How you can feel the tension in a muscle – is it the right place you're feeling? Which muscles are weak? Which joints are affected? And how even with simple exercise, you can make people feel much better.' After a divorce in the mid-1980s, she embarked on a second career, teaching movement and music, and anatomy and massage to therapists, while raising two teenage sons. She has loved the outdoors since her mum, who was a professional musician, took Thynne and her two sisters 'out into the fresh air, to have this love of the countryside, to go brambling, to walk. She gave that to us.' Thynne, similarly, is 'somebody who pushes myself, takes opportunities, takes a risk,' she says. 'I'm obviously prepared to go on trying and doing, [asking] can I do this? And then being surprised that yes, I can.' When she went to her first dance session, it was 'won-der-ful!' she says, singing the word. 'I realised that somebody was teaching me what to do, and there was music playing and I could let go and I felt that joy of my body moving, coming through me.' She progressed to Prime, Dance Base's semi-professional company for over-60s. After that came funding from Luminate, Dance Base, Creative Scotland and Made in Scotland. For These Mechanisms, she has collaborated with the choreographer Robbie Synge. 'It's almost as if I'm having another career.' Along the way, she has learned 'to listen … to find out more about myself, my capabilities. How to put my point of view forward, to be part of a team.' She hopes to tour the show overseas. In the meantime, she keeps fit. 'Each morning, I hang for two or three minutes, take my body weight, then I turn around and hang the other way. Then I do some gentle stretching.' And, of course, she dances. All the time. 'I probably dance if I am going from the fridge to the cooker, taking some dishes,' she says, swirling her hands in the air. 'Isn't that what dance is? You just have to let go and explore it.' These Mechanisms isn't exactly autobiographical, but it 'tells a story of persistence, of joy, of risk', which sounds like Thynne. 'You could do this in your 20s, you could do it in your 80s,' she says. 'It's about the limits of the human body and the desire to make things happen.' These Mechanisms runs until 20 August at DB3 as part of Dance Base's fringe programme, delivered in partnership with Assembly festival Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?
Times
12 minutes ago
- Times
The 12 best crackers and condiments for cheese
C heese lovers know that the excitement doesn't stop once you've picked the right block. Nope, it's just as thrilling to select what crackers to serve it with and which chutneys to have on the side. Here are a dozen tasty suggestions, from classic oatcakes and piccalilli to more adventurous 'stamp' crackers and damson and black pepper jam. 1. Foraged quince preserve, £4.95, Made with English fruit harvested from hedgerows last autumn. 2. Particularly British piccalilli, £4.15, This punchy, crunchy condiment is the perfect partner to cheese and cold cuts. 3. Birch sap and tomato relish, £6.50, If you like strong cheeses then you need a jar of this fruity relish. 4. Daylesford ploughman's chutney, £7.50, This tomato and apple chutney is made to be spread in the ultimate cheese sandwich. 5. Damson and black pepper jam, £6.50, A jar of sharp, tart purple plums that have been given a peppery kick. 6. Somerset cheese pickle, £5.95, Bring out this ale-enriched pickle with full-flavoured Somerset cheeses. • Read more restaurant reviews and recipes from our food experts 7. Extra virgin olive oil crackers, £3.20, Subtly flavoured with oil and sea salt, these are best enjoyed with hard cheese. 8. Perelló crackers, £3.50, Made with flaked sea salt, sesame and olive oil, these Andalucian crackers are satisfyingly crunchy. 9. Nairn's seeded oatcakes, £1.60, These wholegrain oatcakes taste great on their own or with a hunk of cheese. 10. Crosta & Mollica Bolli Italian crackers, £2.15, Named after postage stamps, these are delicious with creamy, light cheeses. 11. Carr's table water biscuits, £1.70, A must on any board, these simple crackers go with all cheeses and toppings. 12. Peter's Yard sourdough crackers, £2.50, Crispy biscuits made for nibbling on with smelly cheeses and charcuterie.
BBC News
12 minutes ago
- BBC News
Live from the harvest: the farmers streaming on social media
Scroll through social media and you will see multiple accounts where farmers are turning their talents to are angry, campaigning against government policies, or informative, keen to show followers the impact of climate change on their daily many say they just want to show people the reality of their trade. High on the Marlborough Downs, Mike Wilkins was testing his winter barley when I met him, breaking off their ears and grinding them in a small machine to see how dry the grain he worked, he explained everything to his phone camera, set up on the bonnet of his dusty farm truck."Now the moment of truth," he smiled to the camera, with a touch of drama."We need under 15% and... (pause for effect)... it's 13.9!"So that's fantastic, we can go harvesting!"Cue music, and a fast cut sequence of aerial shots of the combine, cutting through the barley. This, he explained, was Episode 19 of "What we've been up to on the farm", a series of 90 second short films, covering everything from haymaking and barley planting, to piglets, goats and the farm Wilkins is unusually natural on camera, happily introducing an episode while bottle-feeding two lambs. But then, he was a contestant on the Great British Bake Off, so he's not your typical his intent is the same as the thousands of farmers who now stream their farming lives on social media. "People are so interested now in where their food comes from," Mr Wilkins explained. "So it's nice for them to have something direct from the farmer's mouth, literally. What we're doing and how and why we're doing it."Scrolling through TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and the other platforms, I found hundreds of farmers having a go. There are videos of tractors in Westminster, protesting the government's changes to farm grants and taxes and plenty of dramatic shots of fields on fire, dried out by the record dry Mr Wilkins tends to avoid the thornier issues on his feed."All of those things are really important," he said, "but what we do every day matters too."I think people think farmers complain all the time, but actually we farm because we love it, and I genuinely love every single day."It's nice to be able to get across that passion and the positivity about all the great things we're doing too." Down on the Mendip hills in Somerset, Farmer Dom Northmore was driving his tractor when I met him and topping out some overgrown weeds on a pasture, like generations of farmers have done before him in a new twist, one of the farmhands was launching a drone, to film it all"People love the drone," said Chloe Burke."We like to get the drone out, see what it's looking like from the sky, and then we can, like, post it on our social media."Miss Burke has casually become the social media manager for Lane End Farm. Owners Dom and Rachel Northmore had actually tried hiring a professional firm, from Bristol."It didn't really work," Mrs Northmore explained. "They just didn't get it, it wasn't authentic."Miss Burke already worked on the farm every day, driving the tractor, haymaking, helping with the horses, sheep, ducks and goats and as a typical 25-year-old, she was posting films on her own Northmore realised they were much more authentic, so now they make all the videos together as they go along. "I don't really have a plan, If I see something fun, I just film it," said Miss said haymaking videos have done well for them this year, reaching thousands of people as many farmers bemoaned the low yields and the long, dry spring. Mr Northmore agreed that their fields have produced less hay too, but the films are just a celebration of the craft."We got some really good ones of raking up and baling," Miss Burke said."Everyone really liked the videos of stacking the bales and bringing them in, that was the favourite, a big hit."They mainly post on TikTok, where the vibe is very much short fun-packed videos, rather than lengthy explanations of farming the fun, Mr Northmore hopes there is a serious benefit as said: "It's hard to get on to a farm these days, and with social media thousands of people can see it all, and it's a great way to feel a bit more connected." In the same spirit, the BBC's Farmwatch project will be dipping into countless farms across the country, on Thursday August 7. On a farm near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, Robin Aird is preparing to have his combine harvester streamed live across the country as he cuts his Aird agreed to have BBC cameras fixed to his combine as he gathers in this year's harvest."We hope to show people just what harvest involves, and they'll be able to ask us questions live in the cab too, which will be fun," he part of a BBC project called Farmwatch, when for 24 hours journalists across Britain will shine a light on Aird's combine harvester will, weather willing, be harvesting all day, live on the website. Reporters will be sharing their days on local radio and BBC Sounds, and there are even some job swaps with farmer Mike Wilkins as one of the presenters on a special evening show on BBC Local Radio.
