Behind the scenes, Kate has been navigating her strained relationship with Rio’s children for years.

In a candid interview, Tate discussed the turbulent relationship he had with Kate when she first moved into the family home and how his father Rio would get ‘mad’, as he discussed his childhood ‘trauma’.

Kate and Rio began dating in 2017, two years after the death of his wife Rebecca who tragically died aged 34 in 2015.

She moved into the family home with Rio in 2018, and married a year later.

Kate has been open about the immense challenges she has faced with her stepchildren ever since she took on the ‘difficult’ role of step-parent.

She created the Blended podcast in a bid to support fellow parents navigating the complex and isolating reality of building a blended family unit.

Rio and Kate sat down for a frank conversation with Tate about their journey to their now-thriving blended family on her podcast this week.

Tate admitted he used to ‘hate’ his stepmum Kate and would often tell lies about her ‘meeting other men’ to his father.

He revealed he tried to sabotage his father’s relationship out of ‘loyalty’ towards his late mother.

Speaking about the ‘jealousy’ Rio’s children felt, Kate retold the story of how a delivery containing a present for the former footballer led to Tate accusing her of ‘meeting random men on the drive’.

Kate said: ‘Once I got a phone for Rio and the kids were asleep… someone came to drop it on the drive and they’re a man.

‘Tate told people that when dad’s not there, I’m meeting men on the drive. So then a few people thought that when Rio was out, I was meeting random guys on the drive.’

She even shared a countdown chart they’d put together in anticipation of ‘Daddy’s return’

While listing details about each of her snaps, she also admitted she hadn’t been ‘consistent’ with her gym regime, but was trying to squeeze in time to exercise ‘when she could’

The former TOWIE star revealed her children had been joining in her home gym while she tried to keep on top of her exercise regime in Rio’s absence

In her post, Kate shared a glimpse at her family cheering on England during the World Cup, sharing she let son Cree stay up for the first half of their knocking game against Panama

The former reality star shared a snap of her children watching on as she recorded her Blended podcast at home

Kate offered a glimpse at her busy home life while parenting solo during Rio’s lengthy stint in the US for the World Cup

One snap also showed Kate sweetly cuddling her daughter Shae during a break from recording her podcast

Tate replied: ‘You just had a hater in the house. I used to be so jealous. Not jealous, I don’t even know the word, but I would try and like get into all of your business.’

The television personality also revealed how trying to hide a Valentine’s Day balloon delivery from Rio’s children ‘spiralled out of control’, after they began to spread the lie she had ‘locked them in a room’.

‘I said to the kids, ‘Right, go in that room. Close the door,’ because I had a delivery coming.

‘How it’s come out is, ‘When dad’s not there, Kate locks us in the room.”

She described the ‘massive turmoil’ she felt as people then began to question her if she ‘was doing mad stuff’ like locking the children in a room.

Recalling his side of the story, Tate said: ‘I was just in such a confused state of mind. I didn’t know what was going on. Dad didn’t really like surprise us with things like that.

‘So that was like a bit of a weird thing like, ‘Why am I being told to stay in here for five minutes?’ You come back as if nothing’s happened.’

Tate added the incident happened during his ‘half-hating’ era and he would play ‘mind games’ on Kate by flipping between being loving to not speaking or even looking at her.

‘I remember when I hated you. I hated you. And then we might do something good and then I would flip straight away back into loving mode and then I’d have to almost lie about what I did before to get myself out of it,’ he 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 because one part of me really likes her… and then the other part of me thinks, ‘Oh, there’s a loyalty towards my mum here, what am I doing?”

Tate said he felt like he was stuck in no man’s land for a ‘couple of years’ before he allowed himself to appreciate the role Kate was playing in his life.

The teenager said following the loss of his beloved mother, his father, Rio, ‘shut down’ as he battled the emotions associated with his grief.

He said: ‘In that space in between when mum passed away and when you [Kate] came in, that was probably dad’s hardest point in his life… I remember the reactions we used to get from dad was mad. Dad would just shut us down straight away.’

Kate replied: ‘You’ve lost your mum. He’s working, trying to hold you three together. I think we can give him leeway for that.

‘When I met dad [Rio], he didn’t really face issues head on. This is something that we’ve created over the last however many years.’

After Tate’s previous appearance on the podcast, they spoke about how trolls tried to stir up a competition between Kate and Tate’s late mother.

But she told the teenager: ‘There’s no competition between me and your mum. Your mum’s your mum, your mum’s always going to be your mum.

‘If your mum was here, I wouldn’t be here doing what I’m doing right now.’

Tate appeared on Kate’s podcast earlier this month, where he admitted he didn’t think he would ever love her children in a frank conversation.

While answering listeners’ dilemmas about their own blended families, Kate asked Tate how he felt about her in the early days of her romance with Rio.

She said: ‘Shall we talk a little bit about our relationship? Because this is all new, nobody knows mine and your relationship.’

Tate responded: ‘In that moment I thought you were taking him away, almost. That’s how it felt.

‘Me and Lorenz, not so much. Tia because she was a bit young, used to listen through the door to what you were talking about downstairs.’

However, he sweetly added: ‘When it was good, I loved you.’

Looking back fondly, Kate said: ‘I remember the day it changed, and you were like ‘that’s my step-mum’, I was like ‘oh my god, I’m not his aunt anymore’.’

Kate then read out a dilemma about a woman whose partner’s child ‘begged him to make her and their unborn baby go away.

When Kate asked Tate how he first felt about her first pregnancy, he admitted: ‘At the time I never thought I would love Cree and Shae the way we do now.’

Rio added: ‘I think you might have thought that a little bit, that you weren’t having a normal pregnancy that other people have.’

And Tate queried: ‘Did we make you feel a certain way?’

The family also touched on authority and whether someone who is introduced as a partner to children has the ability to tell them what to do.

Explaining his initial resistance, Tate said: ‘It’s because I felt like you [Kate] were trying to tell me what to do’.

Kate said she was, and Tate said: ‘But I felt you were trying to tell me what to do, and I was like well who are you to tell me what to do.’

In the past, influencer Kate has opened up about the heartbreaking struggle she experienced as a step-mum to Rio’s children after they lost their mother.

Kate battled strong emotions while bonding with her stepchildren, claiming she felt as if she was ‘walking in the steps of someone else’s life’ as her relationship with former footballer Rio blossomed.

In her book How To Build A Family, she wrote: ‘If I could bring Rebecca back, I would in an instant because of the pain I’ve seen in them.

‘A child losing their parent is horrendous. You want to scoop them up and bring their mum back to make them happy, but you can’t.

‘As a step-parent coming into a bereaved home, you can sometimes find yourself in situations where you feel like you’re walking in the steps of someone else’s life.’

Their raw conversation comes after Kate said she was feeling ‘fatigued and pressured to do everything’ earlier this year while admitting to feeling ‘homesick’ following the family’s move.

She said: ‘Life is busy, I’m trying to slow down and not move at a fast pace everywhere. [It’s] not perfect, but I’m more aware of what I am doing, I’m trying to stop myself in my tracks sometimes.

‘Listen, I’ve got a busy life, but I’m actively trying to do like some breath work and some things to like change my mindset cause I realise nothing can change this apart from me.

‘You’ve got to actually make changes in your life so I’m trying to do that and I feel like it’s going OK.’