Kate Ferdinand reveals she ‘cried desperately’ after Rio didn’t buy her a Mother’s Day card

Kate Ferdinand has revealed she cried her heart out in the bedroom after not receiving a card on her first Mother’s Day while living with now-husband Rio and three stepchildren from the footballer’s first marriage.

Rio had three children, Lorenz, 16, Tate, 14, and Tia, 11, with his first wife, Rebecca Ellison, who died of breast cancer in 2015, aged 34, before starting dating Kate in 2017.

Rio and Kate’s relationship soon turned serious and she moved into the family home and treated the children as her own, to which she was devastated to have been forgotten about by a Mother’s Day card.

talking about her Mixed podcast, the former Towie star, 31, who now shares a Cree two with Rio, and is pregnant with their second child, said: “I wasn’t a biological mother. I think it was our first Mother’s Day, she had maybe been living here for six months or so.

And even though I wasn’t a birth mother, I felt like I had stepped into the role of a mother. For me, going from living alone at home to taking the kids to school, making them dinner, I felt like a mother.’

Speaking to Rio, who had also lost her own mother, Janice, in 2017, she continued: “I really thought I might get a card from you, and I didn’t get a card from you.”

‘I felt bad for expressing that in front of you because you had lost your mother and the children have lost their mother. So I went into my room and cried my heart out, seriously.

‘And then I felt selfish for wanting a card, how dare I want a card? So anyone who’s kind of new to this situation might feel like this because it’s weird: ‘I wasn’t a biological father, how could I expect that? But I felt like a mother.

Kate also recounted how in the first few years after Rebecca’s death, the family would go to the cemetery to remember Rebecca on Mother’s Day and other important anniversaries.

She added: “I think we’ve hit the stage now from Mother’s Day, where it might have been five or six years, that we’re a little bit more used to doing occasions together.” We all know how everyone feels and what to expect for the day.

But Rio, 44, couldn’t even remember Kate not getting a card that freshman year and admitted he made a mistake when she brought up the incident.

He said: “I wasn’t being aware of the role you’re playing, and how committed you are, not to reward yourself, but to say ‘let’s give Kate credit for her part that she’s playing in some way, shape or form, whether it’s a card or a cake or whatever.

I got stuck thinking to the kids about this terrible day for them: “It’s not going to be a good day and how am I going to get over it? I have to go to the cemetery.”

‘And then the person who is there putting in all the bribery, who is helping everything go as smoothly as he can, you don’t recognize him. And you look at it now and you think ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ Mistakes are made.

Speaking about the emotions of remembering Rebecca on Mother’s Day, Rio added: “Last year we said to the kids ‘Do you want to go to the graveyard?’ that we do every Mother’s Day.

‘It is a pressure that the children and yourself do not need. The way you want to do things can change.

‘We asked the kids this year and it was a mixed bag of what we got. A couple said yes and I think one or two said, “No, I don’t really mind going there that day, I can go any day, I don’t have to go that day.”

Kate said that on important dates, the family now sometimes chooses to go the day before, so the anniversary date becomes less emotionally charged.

She said: ‘We started a while ago by going to the cemetery the day before. That was another conversation that really helped everyone on Mother’s Day because then we go to the cemetery and whatever comes along, and then the next day doesn’t feel as intense for them or all of us.

“We talk a lot about communication, and it’s so funny, because every time your family hears you say this, they’re like, ‘This is a different man, he never used to communicate.'”

She added: “If we just assume ‘okay, the kids want to go to the cemetery every Mother’s Day,’ we might be doing them a disservice, because actually they might not want to go for a year and that’s okay.” We try to explain to them “don’t worry about what other people think, you have to do what is right for you”.

That’s what I told you at Christmas: you didn’t really want to go to your mother’s graveyard. You said it was too emotional: we usually go on Christmas Eve. I just told you “please tell the kids”.

‘Because if they feel that way, they won’t feel bad, and then they’ll understand how you feel. If they want to go to your mother’s house, I’ll take them, and if they don’t, no.