KERRY'S GOLD
WITH a knife held to her throat while masked raiders armed with sledgehammers and crowbars ransacked her home, Kerry Katona must have feared the worst.
She had been relaxing at her £1.5million house in Wilmslow, Cheshire, with her husband Mark Croft and their baby daughter Heidi, when the gang burst in last Sunday.
The thieves fled with more than £150,000 of goods including jewellery, watches, laptops and TVs, before using Kerry's blue £65,000 BMW M5 as a getaway car.
Fortunately, no one was hurt and her other daughters from her first marriage to ex-Westlife star Brian McFadden - Molly, six, and four-year-old Lilly-Sue - were staying with relatives in Ireland at the time.
But the terrifying ordeal has left its emotional scars - Kerry, 26, is currently recovering in the Priory.
Although no doubt she will bounce back from this latest trauma, as she always seems to, both personally and financially.
It is a fact that misery sells and Kerry has known plenty of that. And her willingness to share the highs and lows of her rollercoaster life - a troubled childhood, drug problems and a bitter divorce - has helped her amass a £3million fortune.
"Kerry has enduring appeal because her life has all the key elements that make a great story - love, tragedy and betrayal," says one magazine executive, who has paid Kerry for a string of exclusives.
"Unlike many stars, Kerry is happy to lay bare every facet of her life and admits she is flawed.
Triumph over tragedy sells - and Kerry sells lots."
Since winning I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! in January 2004, her showbiz stock has soared.
Magazine deals, TV shows and a brutal tell-all autobiography have kept Kerry in the limelight - and in the money.
It means the working-class girl from Warrington can afford luxuries beyond her wildest dreams. So when that gang burst into her stunning five-bedroom home, she was not curled up on the sofa watching telly, but snuggled up with 36-year-old Mark in their luxurious basement cinema watching a film.
Since buying their house in March, she has spared no expense in turning it into the "ultimate love nest", even installing a £10,000 wet room and a double hydrotherapy tub in the master bedroom suite.
Generously, Kerry recently picked up the £1,700 tab for a friend's daughter's christening and she also bought herself a £90,000 top-end Range Rover.
But then she can afford to splash out. She pocketed £100,000 for the reality TV show My Fair Kerry and £100,000 from OK! magazine to cover her engagement to Mark and their Valentine's Day wedding. She is about to make £250,000 from a diet and fitness DVD and is in talks to launch a film career.
She has also just signed a £1million deal with Ebury publishers (part of Random House) to write three novels about fictional glamour model Leanne Crompton. The first, Tough Love, will be out in October. Ebury has every reason to feel confident that the vast fee is money well spent. Her autobiography, Too Much Too Young, for which she alsogot £1million, was a Top 10 bestseller when it was published last October.
And unlike many stars who are quick to release "revelatory" tomes, Kerry had a story worth telling. With an absent dad and a manicdepressive mum, she grew up in care and in a series of foster homes.
HER childhood was so tough she even considered suicide at the age of 13. Instead, she soldiered on, "determined to make something of my life".
She quit school at 16 to become a lapdancer, joined a dance act which toured Europe and was spotted for a new girl band, Atomic Kitten. Then in 2001, just as the group was poised for chart success, she put her career on hold to start a family with Westlife star Brian.
Hello! decided that a marriage made in pop heaven was too good an opportunity to miss and shelled out £1million for the rights to Kerry and
Brian's nuptials at Slane Castle in 2002. But it was her decision to appear on I'm a Celebrity... three years ago that ensured her continued bankability with the celebrity mags.
Winning that show earned her £25,000. Then OK! signed her up to a £5,000-a-week deal as a columnist, and also paid her fees in excess of £100,000 for exclusive interviews about life after the jungle.
And there were plenty of explosive revelations to come as cracks began to appear in Kerry's pictureperfect home life. In September 2004, Brian announced the marriage was over and later got together with Aussie singer Delta Goodrem. The split was acrimonious with lots of sniping about who was fit to have custody of their daughters.
Devastated, Kerry's life spiralled into depression and drug abuse and she went into rehab. To add insult to injury she ended up with £70,000 from the divorce settlement instead of the expected £2million.
Throughout it all her story kept people gripped and her bank balance in the black. People identified with her so she was an obvious choice to get mums to go to Iceland - she earned £250,000 for those TV ads.
Sadly, Kerry's misfortunes have also proved a money-spinner for others. Her mum Sue Katona has made more than £15,000 from giving interviews about her daughter's chaotic life, while so-called "friends" have sold stories about her lovelife and drug problems.
For now, Kerry is taking stock of how much she's lost in the robbery.
But given her indomitable nature, she will also be working out how to turn this setback into another golden opportunity.
THE DEALS
MAGAZINE DEALS: ALONG with a £5,000-a-week deal for her column in OK!, Kerry has made a total of £2million from exclusive magazine interviews.
TV SHOWS: SHE has earned £250,000 in total from appearing on I'm A Celebrity..., Loose Women and her own reality show My Fair Kerry.
ROYALTIES: SHE made £250,000 in royalties while in Atomic Kitten, whose hits included the 2001 No.1 Whole Again.
BOOK AND DVD DEALS: SHE got £2million from her autobiography and a deal to pen fiction books. Plus £250,000 from her fitness DVD.
DIVORCE: DESPITE expecting an estimated £2million in her divorce settlement from former Westlife star Brian McFadden, Kerry only got £70,000.
ENDORSEMENTS: CASHING in on her popularity, Kerry has earned £750,000 as the face of online gaming site bingos.co.uk and fronting the Iceland ads.
THE SPORTS CARS: KERRY owns a £150,000 fleet of flash cars. Her top-of-the-range motors include a BMW M5, an Aston Martin V8 Vantage and a Porsche 911.
THE £1.5M HOUSE: KERRY'S luxury love-nest in Wilmslow, Cheshire boasts a cinema in the basement, a hydrotherapy tub and a £10,000 wet room.
Sundaymirror
