Kerry Katona: My family values

The TV presenter and former singer with Atomic Kitten talks about her family
Kerry Katona
Kerry Katona: 'My family tree is complicated.' Photograph: Jodie Morris/AP

My earliest memory is watching my mum slit her wrists, when I was three. She was manic-depressive, and she self-harmed until I was 15. She's got marks all the way up her wrists, which is why I've got the names of my two elder daughters, Mollie and Lilly, tattooed on my own wrists. I was an only child, and had to grow up very, very quickly. I automatically became my mum's carer. I had to take on a lot as a child. We lived in Warrington and I went to eight schools, I had four sets of foster parents, lived in three refuges, and now, aged 31, I'm living in my 47th house, but I'm the most level-headed I've ever been.

My family tree is complicated. My mum had an affair and got pregnant with me. After coming to see me when I was six weeks old, my birth father went back home to his wife and kids. When I was born, Mum was seeing another guy, who I used to call Dad. His dad was my "grandad". Then my mum left him for his dad. So the man I called Dad became my brother and the man I called Grandad, who was 30 years older than my mum, became my dad. They got married – the most stable period of my childhood. Then my mum left him for a woman.

To understand my life you need to understand my mum's life, as she had no one really. My maternal grandad is Hungarian. He escaped from Budapest to Britain during the war. Mum was born, and, like her brothers and sisters, was put into care. Her birth mum was a prostitute and left Mum in an alley. My Nanna Betty, who is not a blood relative, fostered my mum when she was still a baby. When my mum was 14, her birth mother found out where she was, turned up and threatened to take her off Nanna Betty unless Betty took in my mum's real dad – this big Hungarian guy with all these gold teeth. Nanna Betty and my mum's real dad fell in love, got married and had kids, Angela and Andrew, my auntie and uncle. When my mum was put into an institution after having me, Nanna Betty brought me up too. So you can understand why my mum is fucked up.

I've always tried to please people, make them laugh. Sitting in front of my mum, who was wanting to kill herself because her fella had died, I thought: "You selfish cow – what about me? Am I not good enough?" I always felt really worthless. I always wanted to please her and make everybody love me, and I used humour as a defence mechanism.

I hired a private investigator to find my birth dad four years ago. He got me a picture and video of him, and I was happy to leave it at that. I didn't want to knock on his door and say to his wife: "Hey, your husband had an affair. And guess what? His daughter's Kerry Katona." That's a kick in the teeth innit? But he died a few weeks after I got that photo, and now he's gone I regret not meeting him. Especially when I found I had half-brothers and sisters and his widow said: "If you'd knocked on our door 10 years ago, we'd have welcomed you with open arms." That's a void that will never be filled.

I have so many kids [four] because I want to make sure that if anything happens to me, they've got each other. I don't want them to go through shit in their lives on their own like I did. I want them to be so much better. When they're naughty, I make them kiss, hug and make up. Every breath I take is for my kids. They're my life.

Kerry Katona is on This Morning at 10.30am on ITV1 on Mondays talking about Dancing on Ice