Katie Piper reveals how the evil she endured has driven her to succeed

The acid attack made me more ambitious: Back with her ITV Breakfast Show and a powerful new documentary about imprisoned mothers, Katie Piper reveals how the evil she endured has driven her to succeed

• In 2008, UK campaigner Katie Piper was victim of a horrific sulphuric acid attack
• READ MORE: Katie Piper reveals she has undergone an operation on her eye

Katie Piper would ‘love’ a seat on the This Morning sofa. She was working in the States when the Phillip Schofield scandal began to engulf ITV’s flagship daytime programme, so missed much of the furore that ended his ‘bestie’ friendship with co-presenter Holly Willoughby – and his ITV career.

Katie is a panellist on ITV’s Loose Women, and her Breakfast Show was a big success for the channel last year, but she says she doesn’t feel qualified to comment on Phil’s fall from grace and the fallout at ITV.

‘I don’t know them personally and I don’t think it’s right to comment on people’s lives when you don’t know the full story.’

She returns with a second series of the Breakfast Show later this month. ‘I really enjoy it,’ says Katie. 

‘I’d love to do something like This Morning. Projects like that are appealing because they fit around the school run and you’re always here in the UK with the kids.’

Katie has spent weeks apart from her husband of eight years, Richard, and her two daughters Belle, nine and Penelope, five, as she has been filming  Jailhouse Mums in the USA

Katie has two daughters – Belle, nine, and Penelope, five – with Richard, her builder/carpenter husband of eight years, but she’s spent many weeks apart from them this year in the USA, filming five-part documentary Jailhouse Mums.

‘The last few days I’ve felt really tired,’ she confides. ‘I’ve had a cough and felt run down. I get ratty and irritable, and sometimes feel a bit sorry for my husband because everyone at work gets the best of me, then I go home and I’m like, “Oh my God” We can be sort of resentful with one another, like, “I’ve done the washing”, that passive-aggressive thing that’s typical in a marriage. 

‘We try not to be because we’re very busy and don’t see each other, so when we’re together there’s no point sulking. But, of course, we don’t have this hearts-and-flowers marriage. We’ve been together 11 years.’

I suspect for all that passive-aggression they get on pretty well. He ‘steps in’ when she’s had enough. Tonight he’ll be doing bath and bedtime for the girls. ‘We do it in shifts,’ says Katie.

For Jailhouse Mums, which airs this week, she spoke to women in some of America’s toughest prisons who ‘had regrets, felt guilt and had fractured relationships with their children, which made me think about my kids. 

‘I was always around six hours behind them so I had to set my alarm to crazy o’clock to keep up with them on FaceTime. It was hard; I really missed them. Being a mother is the most important thing to me. It’s something I always wanted and I don’t take it for granted.’

Katie, you see, never really thought she’d be a mum. In 2008 at the age of 24, she was the victim of a horrific sulphuric acid attack when a man she’d dated for only two weeks raped her then paid a hitman to attack her. 

The acid melted away her features, burnt her oesophagus and blinded her in her left eye. Doctors doubted she’d survive, let alone be well enough to get pregnant.

But Katie is a fighter. After seven weeks in intensive care and countless operations to rebuild her face and vision, she set about rebuilding her life and relationships. 

‘My fertility was questionable because I didn’t have normal menstrual cycles after what happened,’ she tells me. ‘Then because I had a cornea transplant I was on anti-rejection drugs – which affect your fertility – for two years. So I was unsure if I’d have kids, but I conceived Belle naturally.’

At the age of 24, Katie was a victim of a horrific sulphuric acid attack when a man she’d dated for only two weeks raped her then paid a hitman to attack her

Katie’s very pretty face lights up when she speaks about her family. After being introduced to Richard by a mutual friend in 2012, Katie conceived when they’d been dating for less than a year. She was 30 when she gave birth by Caesarean section.

 ‘It was the easiest operation ever,’ she says. ‘Nothing went wrong. It was a great feeling and weird in a way. I’d never had a medical procedure that had joy and elation attached to it.’

Katie has had more than 400 operations since the acid attack. When we meet she’s fresh from hospital after surgery to repair a perforation in her eye with a cornea tissue graft. But you’d think she’d only had a bit of dust removed.

 ‘A long time ago I got to the point of acceptance, whereby the life of a burn survivor is going to be one of constant surgery if you were burnt in areas of function like ear, nose, throat, eyes. So I know that’s part of my life and I’m OK with that,’ she says. 

‘I suppose there’s an element of gratitude. Without it your health’s going to go downhill. Your quality of life is too. I’m 40 this year. It’s such a privilege. I really followed Deborah James’s story. She would have loved to continue to age.’

She’s referring to Dame Deborah James, who died last year aged 40 after being diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer six years previously. She was awarded a damehood for her efforts raising awareness of the disease.

 Katie’s mother Diane suffers with bowel cancer too. ‘I related to Deborah because she’s a mother and we’ve got cancer in our family. It’s a real waste of life to moan about still being here. My face is only 15 years old anyway.’ She laughs.

After being introduced to Richard, left, by a mutual friend in 2012, Katie conceived when they’d been dating for less than a year. Pictured: Katie with Richard in 2016

When Katie first saw her damaged face she told her mum she wanted to die, but Diane – who took leave from her job as a teacher to look after her – was having none of it. Instead she and Katie’s father David showered her with love and told her ‘you’re just going to have to get on with it’.

‘My mum and dad are brilliant,’ she says. ‘They gave me unconditional love and support. When I was well enough I was able to move back home but there was an element from my parents of, “You can’t just stay here forever and do nothing. This support won’t stop, but there needs to be progression.” My mum said I’d have to think of a way forward, and I think that’s really helpful.’

She says she feels she’s ‘lived two separate lives’. Katie the ‘fairly privileged, white, middle-class, blonde, attractive girl’ and Katie ‘with the facial disfigurement’. 

‘When you’re inflicted with a disease or disability you’re not born with, life stops suddenly. I was in my 20s, quite a formative time for a woman. I probably became more ambitious with more capacity to do things because I know what it is to be incapacitated.

‘I was in hospital for a long time, then in and out. But in a way, I never was incapacitated because my spirit, my soul, they’re untouchable. So I was always alive. Always busy.’

In 2009 Katie’s abusive ex-boyfriend Daniel Lynch and his accomplice Stefan Sylvestre, the man who threw the acid, were both given life sentences for the attack, Lynch with a minimum of 16 years and Sylvestre with a minimum of six. 

Sylvestre was released on parole in 2018, but went on the run when recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions last year. His whereabouts are unknown.

A year after the attack, Katie gave up her anonymity to increase awareness for burns and scars victims and established The Katie Piper Foundation to provide them with services such as physiotherapy and psychotherapy. 

When her story was televised in the 2009 Channel 4 documentary Katie: My Beautiful Face, the country applauded her courage. She was filming another documentary, Katie: The Science Of Seeing Again, when she was introduced to Richard. 

‘I went to America to make it and we stayed in touch on the phone,’ she says. ‘When I came back from America we picked up. He lived out in Essex and I lived in west London so we only saw each other at the weekend. 

‘We’d just stay in and get a Blockbuster meal for a tenner – crisps, popcorn and two videos. It was nice to get to know someone in a slow way.

‘I liked it that he was busy and independent. I didn’t really need a boyfriend. He didn’t need me either. But when we came together, we had a laugh. We enjoyed each other’s company. We didn’t take things too seriously. That was sexy and attractive.’

Richard also looked at her and saw past her scars. They married in November 2015. Katie says as far as her daughters are concerned, ‘I’ve had operations all their lives, and bandages and recoveries, so it’s never been, “Oh Mum, what happened to you?” It’s more a case of, “Other mums don’t have scars, that’s weird.”

‘Your mum is your anchor for normality. Even when you become a mum you need your own mum. I always go back to a support network. What was great for me was that, when I was desperate, I had my parents and siblings. 

‘I had a great NHS doctor. After I made My Beautiful Face I had the support of the British public which, when you have a facial disfigurement, is massive.

For the documentary Jailhouse Mums, Katie spoke to women in some of America’s toughest prisons who ‘had regrets, felt guilt and had fractured relationships with their children’ Pictured: Katie at the screening of the documentary last week

‘It was this thing of not looking like other people but being supported to go out into the world, to build relationships and a career. When I compared myself to the women I met in America, they didn’t have that.’

She took an interest in the plight of women in prison when becoming an ambassador for Women’s Aid, a charity supporting survivors of domestic abuse, in 2020. 

‘With Women’s Aid I’ve realised that women sometimes become perpetrators of crime when they’ve been victims of domestic violence for years and just snap. Speaking to those women in the States I’d think, “life could have taken me in that direction”. 

‘People do irrational things in the moment, make bad choices. I had my support network. I had my mum. She didn’t want to allow me to stop living but her love was always there.

‘I have my partner. He’s a big support. He alleviates the stress and chaos in my life. Like with my operation the day before yesterday, he drove me to outpatients and to the pharmacy later. He made me dinner. 

‘You know, that important stuff you need to just rely on somebody. It’s not that exciting but it’s the backbone of being able to be who you are.’

• Katie Piper’s Jailhouse Mums airs on Wednesday at 10pm on W, catch up on UKTV Play; Katie Piper’s Breakfast Show will be on weekly from Sunday 25 June on ITV1.

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