Kerry Katona has revealed her eight-year-old daughter Dylan-Jorge used to "spit in her face" after seeing the abuse she endured from her ex-husband George Kay.
Mum-of-five Kerry, 42, opened up about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband George, who died age 39 in 2019 after eating a ball of cocaine, in her upcoming book Kerry Katona: Whole Again – Love, Life and Me.
The former Atomic Kitten singer recalled how her late ex's abusive behaviour began to influence their daughter.
Kerry writes in her upcoming book of the abuse: "It was DJ who worried me the most around this time.
"She was picking up on things she’d seen her father do and even though she was still tiny, only just becoming a toddler really, she had started to spit on me.
"It was so hard not to lose my temper when she did that, but I needed to understand why it was happening."
The mum added: "She would punch and kick at me, lashing out when she got frustrated. It was all mimicked behaviour."
And in an exclusive interview with the Mirror, Kerry revealed her daughter had spit in her face.
She said: "DJ started spitting in my face, that's not a good dad."
Kerry and George first met as students at Padgate High School in Warrington and were childhood sweethearts.
They married in 2014, months after the birth of their daughter DJ. However, their relationship was blighted by abuse as Kerry has claimed the late former rugby player would spit on her and strangle her.
She claimed during their relationship she sent photos of her bruised body to her mum and manager so they knew if anything happened to her, it was at the hands of George.
The singer divorced George in 2017 and eventually took a restraining order out on George and prevented him from seeing their daughter DJ.
George hadn't seen Dylan-Jorge for more than a year before his death.
Following George's death in 2019, Kerry was visited by one of his rugby player pals – she has claimed in her new book – who told her she was right from stopping George from seeing DJ.
"Apparently, he’d planned on injecting her with heroin and then killing himself," she writes in the book.
"I still stand by my decision to stop him from seeing DJ and I know I made the right decision. I would stand on his grave and say it," she adds, before admitting she doesn't even know where her late ex is buried.
Kerry is currently engaged to fiancé Ryan Mahoney. In addition to daughter DJ, the star is also mum to Molly, 21, and Lilly, 19, who she shares with Brian McFadden, and Heidi, 15, and Max, 14, from her marriage to Mark Croft.
George died in 2019. An inquest, which took place in 2021, ruled that George died after taking so much cocaine that he complained he was seeing "shadows and wasps" in his hotel room.
Kerry Katona: Whole Again, published by Mirror Books, is available from high street stores, supermarkets and Amazon now.
