Katherine Ryan opens up on friend's horror murder that taught her to fear men

The target of quite a few of Katherine Ryan’s jokes are men.

Her incisive and cutting takedowns of the opposite sex have been a breath of fresh air for the

But as the mother-of-three tells The Mirror, her ability to so accurately and fearlessly observe men’s follies and misdemeanours actually comes from a very dark, fearful place. Because Katherine learned a hard lesson about what some men can be capable of very early on - when her friend was murdered by her ex-boyfriend.

Katherine was just 19 and working as a waitress in her hometown of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, when her friend and colleague Jessica Nethery, failed to show up for work one day. Katherine also knew Jessica’s boyfriend and that she had just left him - but never dreamed that he would retaliate how he did. It left Katherine traumatised.

“I found out she died when she never showed up for work that day,” she says. “It was traumatic for everyone in the town - because it’s a small place, everyone knows everyone.

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“It really affected me, and it informed, I think, a lot of my behaviours. I proceeded very vigilantly(afterwards).”

Jessica was just 21 - two years older than Katherine - when she was killed by her ex-boyfriend and amateur boxer Jeremy Molitor, then 24. She was found in a parked car having bled to death from being stabbed 58 times.

Moliter, now 46, was found guilty of second-degree murder as the court ruled the attack was not premeditated. He was given a life sentence but released on full parole in 2019.The comedienne remembers telling her mother about the murder at the time and being shocked by her response.

“I thought there would be police and news cameras, it would be big news,” says Katherine. “I told my mother, and I remember my mom was very calm and she said to me: ‘Sometimes, if you leave them, they’ll kill you’. And I went, ‘What?’ Because that happened to Jessica when I was 19, my brain was still growing. It wrote on the canvas of who I am.”

It’s certainly one of the reasons she’s so passionate about fighting misogyny. At the UK Glamour Awards earlier this month, Katherine was given the Feminist Hero award for her fearless honesty on subjects ranging from predatory behaviour to motherhood.

The star is also supportive of The Mirror’s Justice For Our Daughters campaign, which has called for a number of changes to protect victims of domestic violence and to get tougher sentences for those who murder a partner. Statistically, it’s when the victim is trying to leave an abusive relationship that their lives are most at risk.

“I’ve not been affected by physical abuse,” says the mum-of-three. “But I’ve been very hesitant to leave any relationship. And I think it’s gaslighting to say ‘you have nothing to worry about’. It’s an important issue and I think it’s great that The Mirror is addressing it.”

Katherine, who shot to fame as a regular panellist on Channel 4’s 8 out of 10 Cats, addresses a lot of these serious issues through her stand up.

“For myself, a way of processing those dark realities is through humour - finding the light in the darkness,” the Canadian explains.

But she also sparked the #MeToo movement when, in 2022, she told Louis Theroux how she had called out a male co-star on a TV set for alleged sexual abuse.

It was reported that this was while filming Comedy Central’s Roast Battle, which also starred Russell Brand.

A year later, Brand was publicly accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse by four women. He has strongly denied all allegations, stating that all of his sexual relationships were consensual.

Katherine never named the person to whom she was referring.

Today, she wants to focus on the wider issue of the treatment of women.

“I never said who I was talking about. For me, it isn’t about who it is about; it’s about the female experience of navigating every industry,” she says. “All workplaces can be dangerous for women.”

Katherine’s personal life, however, is a testament to how Prince Charmings are not the stuff of fairytales - but do exist in real life!. In fact, her happy ever after could have come straight from a rom-com.

She married her in 2019 - more than two decades after he dumped her at their school prom. They were reunited when Katherine returned home for a TV show and fell in love again.

“I bumped into Bobby while I was back filming Who Do You Think We Are and we slept together,” Katherine explains. “I had never ever had a one-night stand before, and that’s what I thought it was. That would be my warning to anyone considering having a one night stand. Yeah, it can snowball into a marriage. And three kids!”

It’s not been easy. Bobby has supported Katherine through three traumatic miscarriages in the past five years. The couple now have two children, Fred, three and 23-month-old daughter Fenna Grace, and Bobby is also stepdad to Katherine’s daughter Violet, 15, from a previous relationship.

In a sweet social media post to mark his 40th birthday last year, he thanked Katherine, “my one true love for everything you do, every day, all the time.”

As we speak, Katherine is on her UK and European Battleaxe tour and Bobby is currently holding the fort at home. And that involves him doing the majority of the cooking.

“He’s a great cook”, gushes Katherine. She admits she signed him up to a subscription service - Gousto - which delivers fresh ingredients and recipes for home-cooked meals. It made such a difference Katherine is now their ambassador.

“It has increased his confidence, showing him a lot more about ingredients that go together. For me, I’m all about the girl dinner: I would take a gherkin from the fridge and wrap it in cheese, put some mustard on it and eat that.

“I would just eat bits. When I was a single mother, Violet and I would eat just kind of the same thing over and over. We’re quite happy to do that. Just bowls of miscellaneous rice, stir-fries.” Katherine’s single-parent era is something she looks back with fondness.

She had done the odd bit of stand-up at a bar down the road from the restaurant where she worked, before moving to the UK with Violet’s father. However when Violet was born, she knew her relationship wasn’t right and ended it. Then came life as a single mum with a baby.

“I kind of right away thought, ‘Gosh, what have I got myself into?’,” she says.

Working out that daycare would cost more than what she earned in her office job at the time, Katherine decided to focus on stand-up.

“It’s [one job] where I can just work at night when she’s asleep, or I can bring her to a few little gigs. And when you’re starting out, you only get 15-minute slots. I knew enough comedians by then who I would trust someone else on the bill to watch her. It was a very supportive environment. ” she says. “I absolutely loved being a Violet was my best friend and we are so close now.”

Although tricky initially, Violet has bonded well with stepdad Bobby who is brilliant with dealing with the challenging teen phase.

Katherine recalls: “A couple of years ago, it was in fashion to have these two little shave marks in your eyebrows and she got them! We thought, ‘Gosh what next?’ Is it a belly ring? Is it a tattoo? Is it going to be some type of mark on her body that is more permanent than what she’s done to her eyebrows?

“Bobby was laid back saying: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. And he came down the stairs with exactly the same.

“And it just sucks the cool out of it. He said to her, ‘If you get a tattoo, if you get a belly piercing, if you do anything while you are under 18, then I’m going to do it too’. She was horrified by that! So she’s done nothing as reckless since.”

We’ll be able to see how Katherine and Bobby navigate her eldest’s teen years in a second series of her reality show. At Home With Katherine Ryan will air on UKTV next year.

Katherine’s wider family, who could be making an appearance, includes two younger sisters, Kerrie and Joanne, father, Finbarr Ryan, who originally emigrated from Ireland to Canada, and her mother, Julie McCarthy, who has her own podcast, Jewels says.

As Katherine had learned from her mum’s reaction to her friend’s murder, Julie isn’t shy about speaking out and telling uncomfortable truths.

Katherine says: “My mom is a strident feminist she talks about a lot of different things on her podcast. She makes me look very demure! I am not at all provocative compared to my mother!”

Although Katherine’s reunion with Bobby proves going back to the ex can work, it sadly can spectacularly backfire. Like Katherine and Bobby, and Ben Affeck got back together two decades after splitting up. They married in 2022 but unfortunately, JLo filed for divorce earlier this year.

“I don’t feel sorry for JLo,” Katherine says. “I just think that she just needs to embrace that she is beautiful, successful and hopefully has loads of friends. And there is absolutely no shame in being a single woman.

“If you are not thriving in your relationships, you don’t need a man. That’s what’s so wonderful about men.

"We have them if we choose them, but we don’t legally need them anymore.”

As Brits have more on their plate than ever before, Gousto takes a bite out of the to-do list to make planning, cooking and eating dinner as effortless (and delicious) as can be. Partnering with ambassador and comedian Katherine Ryan and ceramicist ‘Margo in Margate’, Gousto has launched the ‘Off My Plate’ ceramic plate range inviting Brits to get their mealtime mental load off their chest and onto Gousto’s plate. Visit for more details