Kerry Katona received a mixed reaction when she pranked her fans with a fake pregnancy announcement in aid of April Fool’s Day.
The TV star, 41, is a mother to five children and decided to play a prank on her 797k followers by saying she was expecting a sixth.
Kerry shares Molly, 20, and Lilly-Sue, 18, with former Westlife member Brian McFadden, 41, and Heidi, 14, and Maxwell, 13, with ex Mark Croft, 50.
Taking to Instagram to make the joke as realistic as possible, Kerry shared an image of an ultrasound scan with the caption: ‘Love you @ryanmahoney_7,’ tagging her partner.
However, after fans called her bluff, Kerry edited the caption to read: ‘Bloody knew you lot wouldn’t believe me!!! 😂😂😂’
The Atomic Kitten singer has since deleted the post from her page completely, after it was branded ‘totally unacceptable,’ particularly by those who cannot have children.
Taking to Twitter to share their frustrations, one fan wrote: ‘Totally unacceptable from @KerryKatona7 as an infertile woman, who has never managed to have children I find this disgusting that someone in the public eye would use their platform to promote this joke THEN DELETE IT.’
Another tweeted: ‘Kerry Katona, pretending to be pregnant as an April Fool’s prank is disgusting and heartless!!! There’s women out there who’ve lost babies or can’t have children and you do this???’
One stated that ‘fake pregnancy announcements are not funny at any time of the year’ while one said it was ‘the lowest thing.’
According to NHS statistics, around 1 in 7 couples may have difficulty conceiving.
While Kerry herself has not addressed the backlash on social media, a spokesperson for the Only Fans content creator told The Sun that she didn’t mean to cause any upset, or to even post it so publicly in the first place.
‘It was an April Fools joke for her fiancé Ryan, but she posted it to her public account and not her private one with very close friends by accident,’ they said.
‘Kerry herself cannot have any more children due to medical issues and has openly spoken about this in the past.
‘She sincerely apologises to anyone who is offended and would never post anything to purposely upset anyone.’
Kerry and Ryan, 32, have been together for over three years now, with Kerry recently opening up on getting her eggs harvested in a bid to welcome a child together.
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The pair got engaged in August 2020, with Kerry saying the personal trainer previously wasn’t the ‘marriage kind of guy.’
After Covid ‘threw a spanner in the works’ with regards to their wedding planning, Kerry said they have plans to marry in Las Vegas but are ‘in no rush.’
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