When former bank worker Kate Wright joined ITV reality show The Only Way Is Essex in 2015, she was refreshingly comfortable embarrassing herself on television.

A close friends of ex-car dealer and TOWIE star Gemma Collins, Kate was in an on-off relationship with handsome electrician Dan Edgar at the time, and happy, as her colleagues tell me, to be ‘rinsed’ by the programme in exchange for fame.

Only everything changed when she caught the eye of former England footballer Rio Ferdinand at a beach club in Dubai, by then a father of three.

The pair met some months after the death of Rio’s wife, Rebecca Ellison, from breast cancer in late 2016. At the time, he was still grieving his childhood sweetheart, but his friends told me he was ‘struck by her sexiness’ and seeking stability for his children.

They were dating by January 2017 and Kate quickly changed her public persona from Essex party girl to doting step-mother. Kate and Rio swiftly began using Instagram as a platform to insist that their blended family was a huge success.

Since then Kate has made having a blended family her ‘brand’. Rio and Kate later had two children, son Cree, five, and daughter Shae, two.

She launched her own money-spinning podcast ‘Blended’ back in 2021 and often speaks about being a step-mum. She has also written books on the subject titled How to Build a Family and a children’s book The Family Tree.

‘They claimed to be the happiest, most sorted family,’ one friend of the clan tells me.

Only now we know that the picture-perfect family image that Kate was so keen to promote wasn’t always accurate.

For this week, Tate, the oldest of Rio’s three children that he had with his first wife Rebecca, admitted that he initially ‘hated’ his father’s new partner when he was younger.

Speaking on the Blended podcast to Kate and her co-host Nathalie Holmes-Lewis about the start of his relationship with his stepmother, Tate said: ‘I felt so guilty for liking Kate and loving Kate. I felt guilty for my mum’s family, for my mum. It’s a really weird feeling.

‘One part of me really wants to like her. And then the other part of me thinks, “Oh, there’s a loyalty towards my mum here, what am I doing?”’

Addressing Kate, Tate said: ‘When I hated you, I hated you. Then we might do something good and I’d flip straight back into loving mode. And then I’d have to almost lie about what I did before. I was in a confused state of mind.’

While his outburst will come as a surprise to many, since Kate and Rio met a decade ago following Rebecca’s death, I’ve been assured that things haven’t always been as they seemed.

For insiders close to Kate tell me that her transition into the role of stepmother wasn’t easy.

One former friend of Kate’s told me at the time: ‘It’s all so hypocritical. Kate wasn’t very nice to those kids in the beginning. She got with Rio when she was 25 and he was 37 with three children under ten whose mum had tragically died the year before.

‘She went from going out on the lash with her mates in Essex to being step-mum to three young and grieving children. She very much had to focus on the positives of being with someone with a huge profile and the money that he had. She found it really hard but obviously now she’s making a living out of it all.

‘Kate has gone from Essex reality girl to blended family spokeswoman. And while she may be open about their struggles it’s only ever what she wants to share. The reality has been quite different.’

While many have suggested that Kate’s life certaintly got easier after she met Rio, because his £10 million fortune meant she no longer had to tout herself on the reality television circuit, it hasn’t been without its setbacks.

One former friend of Kate’s told me at the time: ‘She’s made for life now isn’t she? Got herself a rich footballer. She doesn’t need the show anymore, she’s gone up a level in the celebrity world thanks to Rio.’

‘It’s a massive case of Instagram versus reality,’ says my source. ‘Kate bigs it up but actually it’s hard for her. She got dragged out to Dubai to live and she didn’t like being away from her family.

‘She thinks she’s better than everyone else just because she married Rio Ferdinand. But all is definitely not what it seems behind closed doors, it never is is it? She’s not as happy as she makes out on all her social media posts. It’s all actually quite sad really.’

Kate has remained by Rio’s side throughout his grief, but it means she sometimes has to exist in Rebecca’s shadow. The former TOWIE star supported Rio when he won a TV Bafta in 2018 for his documentary Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad, about fatherhood following Rebecca’s death. Kate appeared next to him during his emotional speech, but he predominantly praised his late wife.

Rio isn’t perfect either. During my years of reporting on footballers, I’ve heard numerous stories of what a party boy he used to be.

And I recall the day Rebecca’s death was reported with a great deal of sadness.

As the news broke, red top newspapers published claims that Rio had cheated on Rebecca, including having an affair with interior designer Carly Storey.

After the Sunday Mirror printed the story, Rio lost a privacy case against them. During his high court showdown, it was revealed that he also had flings with Sarah Whatmore, a contestant on Pop Idol, Brazilian model Tatiane Rosalino, who he met at a magazine shoot and Virgin Airways hostess Lauren Alcorn, for whom he paid to have an abortion.

And he allegedly had a three-way sex session with Catherine Shepherd and Savannah Benson in Ayia Napa in 2004.

‘It’s devastating to think what Kate had to read,’ says one former friend of Rio’s. ‘He was a total dog. Yet Kate wanted to hook up with him. It makes you wonder why.’

Quite. But it wasn’t long after Rebecca’s death that Kate – 12 years Rio’s junior – moved from her native Essex to Kent before the family uprooted to Dubai – apparently all on his insistence.

They took the two children they had together, Cree and Shae, hough for Rio’s other children, Tate, 18, and Tia, 15, who also went with them, it was a huge upheaval.

‘Kate wasn’t over the moon about going to Dubai, but she followed Rio there,’ says a friend. ‘But she wasn’t happy there. She missed her family. You have to ask yourself when you’re with a man who is so rich, how much you have to follow them.

‘It’s a story as old as time but it’s true.’

Now that Kate has had her own children with Rio, their relationship dynamic has shifted. And those close to the former TOWIE star say they fear for the future of their partnership.

While the couple profess to be in love - and tied the knot in a stunning ceremony in Marmaris, Turkey, in September 2019 – friends note that Rio is often working abroad. In fact, he is currently working as a pundit for the BBC in Salford.

A source close to Katie said: ‘There has definitely been a power shift in the relationship since Kate had her own children with Rio. He’s away from the family a lot for work and she’s left looking after the kids.

‘She hardly speaks to anyone from her Essex days, she’s someone who has definitely forgotten her roots. She’s big time now, and completely reinvented herself.’