Kate Ferdinand on Rio's kids' surprising reaction after she called herself their mum

Kate Ferdinand has revealed Rio's kids' heartwarming reaction when she accidentally referred to herself as their mum. The former TOWIE star, 33, is a stepmum to Lorenz, 16, Tate, 14, and Tia, 12, who Rio shares with his late wife, Rebecca.

Kate, who also shares son Cree, five, and daughter Shae, two, with husband, Rio, told the Happy Place podcast that, happily, her stepkids have no problem if she calls herself their mum, instead of 'Mummy Kate'.

Opening up about her blended family dynamic after announcing that she and Rio had moved their brood to Dubai, she said: “Sometimes I’m ‘Mummy Kate’. But the other day I found myself going ‘come here to Mummy’, and Tia’s there and I go ‘oh sorry’. Tia said ‘Kate, it’s fine, I’m OK if you say Mummy. You don’t have to say Mummy Kate. It doesn’t bother me’.”

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Despite their strong bond now, Kate recently revealed she had spent the night in tears after not getting a card on her first Mother's Day when she moved in with Rio and her three stepchildren.

Speaking on the couple's Blended podcast, she shared: "I wasn't a biological mum. I think it was our first Mother's Day - maybe I'd been living here about six months, something like that. And although I wasn't a biological mum I kind of felt like I'd taken on the mum role.

"For me, going from living at home on my own to taking the kids to school, cooking them dinner, I felt like a mum."

Speaking to Rio - who also lost his 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 to express that in front of you because you guys had lost your mum, and the kids have lost their mum.

"So I just went in my room and I just sobbed my heart out - seriously."

"And then I felt selfish for wanting a card, 'How dare I want a card?'

"So anyone that's kind of new in this situation might feel like that because it's a weird one - 'I wasn't a biological parent so how could I expect that?' But I felt like a mum."

Kate, who married Rio in 2019 after meeting the sports pundit in Dubai, speaks candidly about her family life and recently stunned fans when she announced that they had all moved to the United Arab Emirates.

The mum-of-two gave her followers an inside look at their new family home on her Instagram as she stated it was a ‘new chapter’ for the family.

Kate captioned the post: "A new chapter, a fresh start - because if we don’t try, we’ll never know. Ahhh! We’ve talked about this for so long, and now it’s finally real… we’re here, we are making a new home in the place we met!"

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