I was a poor single mum but I was so happy – now I’m worried my best days are over, says 39-year-old Katherine Ryan
WITH a loving partner, three beautiful children and a career most comedians could only dream of, Katherine Ryan appears to have it all.
But the 39-year-old Canadian says her previous days as a struggling single mum to oldest daughter Violet were maybe the best of her life — and fears she won’t have better again.
“I was really happy with my daughter,” says Katherine, who is now in a civil partnership with Bobby Kootstra, 40, with whom she has a younger son and daughter.
“I’m not one of those mothers who needs time away from my kids, I want to be with them as much as possible.
“Well, now they kind of annoy me because there’s three of them — but when Violet was little, she never bothered me.
“She was my best friend, the love of my life. I’m actually quite nervous that my decade of being a single mother to Violet, and of struggling and being poor . . . I’m worried that might have been the best time of my life.
“I don’t know if I’ll have another decade that was so joyous.”
Katherine and Bobby, who works in broadcasting, have son Fred, 21 months, and daughter Fenna Grace, who was born in December.
But it is sensible Violet, 13, whose father has never been publicly named, that has the naturally outspoken Katherine perplexed.
She explains: “I’m struggling with Violet’s desire to be very ordinary. I’m a bit disappointed that that’s the way it is, but I understand I’m the exception.
“It’s totally normal for kids to want to blend in. It’s funny because I would walk around school saying I was famous.
“I was bullied for a time, just for being an unusual child in a small-minded, small town.
No-holds-barred routines
“I was friends with other strange children. And we had a lovely time but they’d get upset and say, ‘We’re being talked about’.
“And I’d say, ‘Yeah, we’re famous. Everybody talks about us and goes out of their way to say nasty things to us. We’re famous!’
“I’ve always had that experience of being looked at, or singled out, or being different. And I think I wanted to own that.”
Katherine, who presents podcast Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything, has vowed to protect Violet’s privacy as she gets older.
She says: “Violet has always seen I’m a person with a career and she knows the difference between what ‘TV Katherine Ryan’ does and who I am. I am very careful about her privacy.
“So the older she gets, I don’t talk about things in her life any more. I wish I could talk on stage all about the trials and tribulations of 13-year-old Violet but I can’t. I do have a moral compass in that regard.”
Katherine’s mostly uninhibited comedy has catapulted her to stardom since she moved to the UK from her homeland in 2008.
But she admits her no-holds-barred routines have at times left her feeling misunderstood.
She says: “My job is to entertain people. If I’m giving them some fodder to talk about, if they want to make fun of me, I don’t care.
“But, as of late, I’ve started to see that people really do think I’m a bitch.
“TV commissioners, executives, they’ll say, ‘We worked with her and she’s actually very lovely’.
“People are really believing this stand-up persona, and recently that has started to get me, only slightly, down.
“There’s a treatment [summary] for this new thing I’m doing, and I had to log in to view it.
“I was really excited about the project, and they said, ‘So right, you’ll come in, being a bitch, like you always are . . .’ The image they had of me was The Devil Wears Prada.
“I find it disappointing. Generally it’s disconcerting that a woman with an opinion or an agenda is automatically a bitch. Sometimes it’s exhausting.”
Thankfully, Katherine does not find the celebrity aspect of her career quite so tedious and admits she is rarely recognised.
She says: “Comedians aren’t chased around by paparazzi – we are so transparent about our private lives that no one’s interested in prying into our private lives.
“When you see someone actually famous, they’re recognised everywhere.
“But with me, I’m born with the natural disguise of looking like c**p when I haven’t got make-up on, so I can go anywhere and do anything.”
But fans do recognise her children, thanks to the sweet photos she regularly shares of them on social media.
Katherine says: “What’s started to happen since I had my most recent baby, Fenna, is that the babysitter takes Fred out to the park instead of me doing it, and people have said to her, ‘That’s Katherine Ryan’s son, I remember him from Instagram’.
“And I’m like, ‘The BABY is famous?’ ”
Meanwhile, Katherine says fellow Canadian Bobby, who she first dated when they were 15 before they reunited 20 years later in 2018, adores the perks of being with a TV star.
She says: “Bobby loves that I’m on television and I’m quite well-liked.
“He likes it when people recognise me, he likes that we went to Maya Jama’s birthday party, he likes the red carpet and all the perks. He’s proud of what I do.”
She continues: “Anyone who tells you they don’t like being famous is lying. Or maybe they’re shy.
“For the most part, if you went back to being non-famous, I think you would feel very invisible all of a sudden.
“You get used to the adulation and people giving you free things and inviting you places.
“How can that be annoying to people? If anyone stops me to say hello, why would I be annoyed? It’s lovely that people want to say hello.”
Speaking on Jo Elvin’s Fame podcast, Katherine confesses there was only one time she struggled when meeting a fan, for very personal reasons.
“The only time it upset me, I was having miscarriages back to back and I was really saddened by that,” she explains.
“I didn’t know if I’d be able to grow my family with Bobby. We were trying and it was very unsuccessful.
“I was so bothered by that, I became obsessed by, ‘How am I going to fix this?’ I wanted more than anything else to have more children.
“I took Violet to the Starbucks drive-thru, and I was really sad. The gentleman at the drive-thru was so nice and he said, ‘Oh my goodness, you’re Katherine Ryan, I love what you do. I can’t believe you’re at my Starbucks!’.
“He was so excited to meet me, and we drove out and I burst into tears.
“Violet asked me what was wrong and I said, ‘I don’t want to be Katherine Ryan.
“All these wonderful things when strangers are kind to me . . . I don’t want any of that stuff – I just want to have a baby. I just want that one thing’.
“All the silly s**t I thought was special, it was all meaningless. So that was the only time I got upset when someone recognised me. But that was all down to my own issues.”
Having given birth to two healthy children since her miscarriages, Katherine now has to navigate the online minefield of being “mum-shamed”.
‘I don’t get rattled’
She recently hit back at a troll who criticised her for drinking a glass of wine while pregnant.
“That started a very important conversation,” she says.
“People were congratulating me on normalising that you can be a breastfeeding mum and have a glass of wine here and there.
“People like to mum-shame.
“When I know that I’m right, I don’t get rattled at all by it.
“I knew that in that instance I was not only helping more people breastfeed, but also spreading knowledge about something. If Mumsnet want to come after me, I don’t care.”