Kerry Katona is tucking ravenously into steak and chips when we meet, piling on the ketchup and grabbing another handful of fries from the bowl in front of her.

She is, of course, eating for two, and although she is only 14 weeks pregnant she is almost popping out of her tight, gypsy-style dress, her ample 34DD cleavage having ballooned to even greater voluptuous proportions.

The former Atomic Kitten star is her usual bubbly self, looking every inch the persona that fans have come to know and love on the covers of glossy celebrity magazines, as the face of the Iceland ads and on shows like I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here and ITV's Loose Women.

But you sense a wariness there, a caution of someone who has suffered at the hands of celebrity as well as benefited from it.

Few will forget this funny, down-to-earth, elfin character eating jaw-crunching bugs in the Australian jungle to gain meals for her team-mates.

She soon won the hearts of the public as it became obvious how much she was missing her two young daughters, Molly and Lilly Sue, as well as her husband, Westlife star Bryan McFadden.

But soon after that, her world came crashing down.

Her highly publicised split from Bryan, a bitter custody battle over their two children, claims of drug and alcohol binges and further criticism when she was pictured smoking during her latest pregnancy all provided plenty of tabloid fodder.

Today she's drinking Coca-Cola and has brought her new partner with her, Mark Croft, a cabbie 10 years her senior who has now become Kerry's personal driver and is also the expectant father of her third child, due in March.

They began dating last February and are soon to move to a big house in the countryside near Warrington, where they hope they will have more privacy. They plan to marry at the end of next year.

It is Mark, she says, who has given her back her love of life. But I suspect that it is her mother, Sue, who chose to stay with her violent partner and put Kerry into care when she was a child, who has had the greatest influence on her life.

Mother and daughter have had more ups and downs than a busy elevator. Growing up in Warrington, Cheshire, Kerry had to provide the emotional prop her alcoholic mother needed following several suicide attempts, and also lived in fear of her mother's violent boyfriend.

By the age of 11, Kerry had been to seven different primary schools and at 13 she was taken into care after her mother was knifed by her boyfriend, yet decided to stay with him anyway. In Kerry's eyes, her mother chose him over her.

"My mum's my mum and I love her," she shrugs about their relationship now. "Our relationship will always be up and down but we are on talking terms at the moment."

Indeed, they live near each other in Warrington and Sue vetted every word of Kerry's latest project, her autobiography, Too Much, Too Young, which is, unsurprisingly, ghostwritten.

One might wonder how a person of the tender age of 26 might have that many life experiences to write about, but certainly the start of this pint-size sex bomb's life was remarkably tough.

"I get a lot of letters from kids in care, saying how I've inspired them and if my story can change one kid's opinion of life, my job's done."

"I don't think my childhood toughened me up," she continues. "It's all a front."

What has probably hardened her is her old girlfriends who she believes sold lurid stories about her to the tabloids behind her back. It has led to Kerry leading a pretty solitary lifestyle with her young daughters and Mark.

"I have no friends. I don't have a girlfriend that I can talk to. I don't go out with the girls. I just have Mark. But I like it like that.

"My ideal evening is sitting on the couch watching telly, kids in bed, going to bed at half past nine and watching CSI on TV."

Fame has proved a double-edged sword, she admits.

"Everything I do is public knowledge and there are press outside my home every day. It affects my whole family."

The new man, new move and new baby is evidently a much-needed fresh start for the woman whose first real love, Bryan McFadden, reportedly dumped her by phone, simply saying that he didn't love her any more.

Kerry begged him to come back to her, that they should seek counselling and make another go of it but he didn't want to know, she says now.

After an acrimonious divorce which should be finalised in a few weeks, she says she doesn't have any relationship with Bryan at all, that he rarely sees the girls and that she still can't understand why he split from her.

"I don't have a relationship with Bryan. He sees the girls when he can. I'd like him to have them at weekends, like other normal arrangements. He's not been a bad dad and he does love the kids, but he's flying all over the world.

"I still don't know why Bryan left. I wish him all the happiness and love in the world, I really do. I would love to have a relationship with Bryan, to have him as a best mate and go shopping with his girlfriend, Delta. I'm that kind of person.

"But he's just too hung up on everything that's gone wrong."

Kerry fast became the queen of the tabloids when she turned to drink and drugs following the break-up of her marriage.

"Drugs and drink provided a mask for me to hide behind. They meant I could pretend to be the bubbly Kerry who everyone loved," she admits.

She had long been a binge drinker but the trauma of the break-up pushed her over the edge and she started using cocaine.

"I was devastated. It was just more rejection in my life that I had to cope with - and I couldn't cope at all. I had bipolar (manic depression) as well so my moods were up and down and the drugs helped me cope with my mood swings."

After a spell in The Priory, Kerry ended up at Cottonwood, the famous rehabilitation centre in Arizona, which she believes sorted her out.

"I got drunk on the plane on the way over," she laughs. "But I really wanted to get better. I wasn't a big drug addict but I had been using cocaine for a couple of months. Some of my friends were doing it and encouraging me to do it, because I was the one with the money who was going out and buying it."

Kerry is still on medication for depression and probably will be for the rest of her life. She sees a psychiatrist once a week to talk about her problems.

Now, Kerry is looking forward to a new start in her life which, she says, will centre around her family.

So would it bother her if she was no longer famous?

"Only in the sense of what would I do for work? It's not like I could go to Iceland and do a 9-5 job..."