Kate Ferdinand admits she ‘cried every day for a year’ as she struggled to adjust to life as a stepmum

Kate Ferdinand has opened up in a candid interview about the difficulties she faced trying to fit in with now-husband Rio Ferdinand’s family when she first moved into the home he shared with late wife Rebecca Ellison.

The former reality TV star admitted that she ‘cried every day for a year’ as she struggled to find her place within his family and their home.

‘I cried every single day for a year when I first moved in with Rio,’ she told You magazine. ‘It was an incredibly difficult time because his mum Janice passed away [of cancer in 2017] just two years after they had lost Rebecca. My heart was breaking for them. All I wanted to do was try to fix him, make the kids happy and be as kind and supportive as I could.

‘I gave up my job. I wanted to do everything right. But I didn’t know how to cook. I kept getting things wrong, like forgetting to put a gym kit in a school bag or missing an email from one of the kids’ teachers. ‘

She added, ‘I would get into a total state because I felt I was messing up in front of so many people who didn’t want me there. I wasn’t a mum. I wasn’t really used to being around kids, but I knew I would do anything for them.

‘I lost myself. I felt as though I was acting all the time, trying to smile and learn to cook and be this perfect woman. I tried to talk to Rio but it sounded like I was moaning when he had much bigger problems to deal with. So I’d go to our bedroom and cry.’

The couple, who were interviewed together, said making their new documentary Rio And Kate: Becoming A Step Family, became a ‘relationship saver’.

‘I was frightened of doing the documentary,’ she said, ‘and I was a nightmare when we were doing it as I felt so vulnerable. But it really helped because it made us all talk.’

‘Things are good now,’ added Rio. ‘We didn’t appreciate that so many problems are caused because people are scared that things will change, and they won’t be part of that change.

‘Yet it’s so important to us that everyone is part of this. But it’s a difficult thing to get through. Everyone has their own grief, their own fear, their own sense of loss, and you can only move on by acknowledging that and trying to make it better.’