Katie Hopkins' life behind scenes - affairs, debt and ex she 'wanted to kill'
Katie Hopkins has made a career out of her cruel tirades against everything and everyone from obesity to refugees - and her personal life is just as controversial.
Earning herself a reputation as one of Britain's most loathed celebrities, the disgraced broadcaster was fired from her LBC show in 2017 when she made offensive remarks about the Manchester Arena bombing and was banned from Twitter in 2020 for "violations of our hateful conduct policy".
Most recently, the 48-year-old columnist has been slammed for shamelessly mocking Kate Garraway following the heartbreaking loss of her husband Derek Draper, who died just over a week ago after suffering from long Covid. In a video shared to social media, Hopkins, who was captured gleefully swigging red wine, claimed to her followers that ITV was screening a 'Life After Derek' TV special and that Kate had rushed out a book to discuss his tragic passing. Neither the TV documentary nor book exists.
Katie Hopkins and her first husband, millionaire businessman Damian McKinneyIn the accompanying tweet, Hopkins wrote: "Important @ITV documentary tonight. #KateGarraway. #LifeAfterDerek allegedly sponsored by Fizzzzzzzeeerr" - which is in reference to the vaccine company Pfizer, despite Derek catching the deadly disease before the vaccine was created.
"Accompanying book available wherever you get your 100th boooooosta #ExcessDeaths," Hopkins added. Unsurprisingly, her cheap and nasty stunt provoked a vicious backlash. Just one response was from political commentator Tan Smith, who wrote: "I’ve seen a lot of grim stuff on here, but seeing hateful psychopath Katie Hopkins, recording herself laughing whilst mocking Kate Garraway regarding the death of her husband, was one of the worst."
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Hopkins had anticipated the reaction, saying in her video: "This is where I get such a b****ing where people go 'That is a line! That crosses a line! How dare you laugh?'… Or the other thing people will say is 'You should be ashamed of yourself.'"
The TV personality shot to fame on the 2007 series of BBC's The Apprentice and as she became known as a controversial motormouth, she has gone on to form a career as a TV pundit and far-right columnist. The former businesswoman has shared her disturbing opinions in newspapers The Sun and MailOnline, while she appeared in the 15th series of Celebrity Big Brother, where she finished runner-up.
Some of her outrageous opinions have involved her children, who she insisted she wouldn't allow her daughters to be friends with other kids who had names like Chardonnay. She shares the two, India and Poppy, with her ex-husband Damian McKinney, a former Royal Marine.
When they met, he was married to another woman, with Hopkins insisting she "stole" him. They married in 2004 however she claims he left her soon after the birth of their second daughter. "The day after I had Poppy, I got a taxi home from the hospital and Damian had already gone away with his new partner," she told The Times. "I had a brand new baby, another daughter under the age of one and I also worked for the company he owned. At the time I could have killed something - myself, him, someone."
Whilst working as a global brand consultant at the Met Office, she became embroiled in an affair with her now-husband Mark Cross, who was a married design manager at the government agency. The pair were pictured romping in a field together despite Mark still being in a seven-year marriage with his first wife.
Hopkins with her husband Mark Cross (Getty Images)
The couple, who married in 2010, share a son (Brian Cassey/REX/Shutterstock)But he soon left her for Hopkins and they tied the knot in 2010, with their marriage filmed as part of Sky Living reality show Four Weddings. The couple then welcomed a son, Max, in 2008.
"He is probably the only person on the planet that can control me, weirdly, because whatever he says is going to be right and there is no escaping that," Hopkins once said. Revealing they are 'polar opposites', she explained that he is known in their inner circle for being 'lovely'.
"Everyone says to me with a look of horror, 'What, you're married to lovely Mark?'" she said in the Mail. "His relatives in Australia actually said to me at Christmas, 'It's a surprise that you're married to our Mark.' He is genuinely the nicest man on the planet. Not in a wet way though."
In 2019, Hopkins was forced to sell her million-pound family home after losing a libel case over two tweets to food writer Jack Monroe. She had tweeted at Jack: "Scrawled on any memorials recently? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom. Grandma got any more medals?"
Jack soon responded: "I have NEVER 'scrawled on a memorial'. Brother in the RAF. Dad was a Para in the Falklands. You're a piece of s***." Hopkins went on to admit that there had been a case of mistaken identity, but Jack wanted more than that admission.
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The luxurious five-bedroom mansion in Exeter was sold for £950,000 following her legal defeat. Photographs of the property showed garish interiors, with a neon open-plan kitchen and a lurid hot pink carpet in the living room.
The sale came after she had to take out an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) after racking up crippling debts from the libel case, along with losing her LBC show and after being dropped as a Daily Mail columnist - when she inaccurately accused two Muslim men of being banned from flying to the US due to links to terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda.
She was left to repay her creditors through a debt management scheme. At the time, one of her cruel tweets came back to haunt her, with critics pointing out the irony as she faced her own money struggles just four years later. The 2014 tweet read: "The only thing people in debt have in common other than bad money management, is an ability to blame anyone but themselves."
Meanwhile, over the years, Hopkins has been troubled by ill-health. The mum-of-three has been pictured receiving medical attention, most notably from the emergency services in South Africa. She said she took ketamine after dislocating her shoulder, a repeat injury that also happened in 2017 when she was on her way to Heathrow.
The excruciating pain was a "legacy" of Hopkins' 20-odd years of living with epilepsy, her husband Mark told the Sunday Mirror. She has suffered from the illness since the age of 18, and in one particularly episode, actually broke her back and couldn't move properly.
In her younger years, she had kept her condition a secret during military training at Sandhurst but was kicked out for 'cheating the system' after having a seizure. "The look on the face of the chief medical officer was awful. Somehow, he'd got hold of my medical records. He looked so pleased that he'd found me out," she said.
The UKIP supporter was having up to five seizures a night and suffering from convulsions. She was almost pulled out of the I'm A Celebrity jungle in 2007, but got voted out before that could happen. And in 2016, she was given open-brain surgery lasting 12 hours after a series of dislocated arms - which would require weekly emergency treatment. "I have to sleep with my arm in a sling I carry in my bag. I dislocate my arms at least once a week. When that happens an ambulance comes," she revealed shortly before the major surgery.
"If the brain surgery works they'll be able to put my arms permanently back in their sockets and my life would be perfect." "They were talking about which parts of the head will need to be shaved, but I don't give a s*** about my hair. I want to be there for the kids, I want to write and to have my arms and legs," she added.
After the operation, Hopkins claimed she was "cured" of epilepsy.
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