Kerry Katona was rushed to hospital in an ambulance over fears she was having a stroke while watching her eldest daughter Molly in a new play in London
What should have been an enjoyable family outing descended into a nightmare for Kerry Katona after she was taken by ambulance to hospital amid concerns she was suffering a stroke.
The former Atomic Kitten star, who had travelled to London to watch her eldest daughter Molly perform in a new play, began feeling ill halfway through the show. Following the performance, she noticed she couldn’t smile normally – a key warning sign of stroke.
Kerry, accompanied by her daughter Heidi and partner Ryan Mahoney at the time, reveals: “As the day went on, I didn’t feel well. I went to the toilet and noticed my face wasn’t right. And Heidi was like, ‘Mum, what’s wrong with your face?’ I started panicking. I discreetly left, went to my hotel and asked to see a doctor. I told the staff, ‘Something’s not right.’”
With no doctor available for four hours, the mother-of-five hailed a taxi to St Thomas’ Hospital. “I got there, and they said, ‘We’re treating this as a stroke,’ so they blue-lit me in an ambulance from St Thomas’ to King’s College Hospital,” Kerry explains. “They were shining lights in my eyes while my face and speech were getting worse.
“An hour ago I was watching our Molly in a play and now I’m being treated for a stroke. What the actual f**k? It just shows how quickly things can change.” The gravity of the situation led Kerry, 45, to message all five of her children – Molly, 24, Lilly, 23, Heidi, 19, Max, 18, and 12 year old Dylan-Jorge – worried it might be her last chance to communicate with them.
“It really, really scared me,” she recalls. “I texted all my children and told them I loved them. I’ve never been so scared in my life.” Upon arrival at hospital, Kerry underwent numerous tests, including CT scans, before doctors identified what was behind the alterations to her speech and facial movements, reports the Mirror.
“It was a suspected stroke, but luckily that was ruled out after my scans. Instead the CT scans showed there’s a part of my brain that’s broken and isn’t able to send signals to my face due to stress,” she explains. “I’ve spoken to Anna Williamson from Celebs Go Dating about it since, and apparently it can also happen when you’re feeling content. It’s like delayed stress hitting you suddenly because you feel at peace. Every now and then, I’ll get a shooting pain in my head. And I’m noticing my speech – even though I think I’m saying something properly in my head, it doesn’t sound right out loud.”
While Kerry cannot identify precisely which stressor may have triggered the condition, she acknowledges feeling exhausted. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m run down from balancing family life, but I don’t have a social life. I don’t go out drinking. I don’t socialise with anybody outside of my circle, which is Paolo and my kids,” she reveals.
Armed with this knowledge, Kerry has been revisiting old home videos, attempting to spot when the changes began. Reviewing the footage, she notes she can detect her speech deteriorating gradually over time. “The doctors said it will come back. But I want to have speech therapy and get the right exercises for my face,” she says. “I’m getting a bit panicky with it.”
For Kerry, the frightening episode must have brought back painful memories of her late husband George Kay, who was admitted to hospital in 2015 while displaying similar stroke-like symptoms. The former rugby league player experienced facial paralysis and speech difficulties, mirroring Kerry’s current condition. Kerry had pleaded with her followers to pray for him at the time. It was subsequently revealed that George, who sadly passed away from a drug overdose in 2019, had been diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, a condition causing sudden temporary weakness or paralysis of facial muscles on one side.
Attempting to distract herself from her medical concerns, Kerry travelled to Spain to mark Dylan-Jorge’s 12th birthday and soak up some sunshine with Paolo and their combined family. However, she acknowledges the trip’s timing isn’t particularly convenient.
“I genuinely feel like s**t,” she says. “Because we had to fly out to Marbella, I haven’t had any follow-up checks. But I’ll do it as soon as I get back to try to get my speech and face sorted.”
Currently, Kerry’s face remains tight on one side, though she remains optimistic that exercises and speech therapy will help restore everything to normal. This recent complication adds to a series of health challenges Kerry has encountered over the past 12 months. In 2025, she endured the devastating loss of two pregnancies with Paolo. Then in January this year, she was admitted to hospital experiencing acute abdominal pain and received a diagnosis of colitis – a long-term condition causing inflammation of the rectum and colon. She was forced to avoid her cherished spicy dishes to aid her recovery.
However, this most recent challenge could prove to be Kerry’s most difficult health struggle to date.


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