Love her or hate her, the world would be dull without Katie Price

There was a time not that long ago I didn’t really know who Katie Price was.

As an Aussie, sure I’d heard of her, but the Pricey wasn’t a mainstay of local gossip Down Under. I knew she was married to one of our own, Peter Andre, and used to model under the moniker of Jordan (in fact, it took me a while to realise this wasn’t her real name), but apart from that, I was totally, some may say blissfully, unaware.

After moving to the UK and diving into the world of entertainment journalism – yes, it is a real job – I was forced to learn all about Katie or bust. Or, more accurately, be fired, I suppose.

But while some elements of UK showbiz are harder to wrap my head around than others and at least once a week I shock my editor with my ignorance about someone I know very little about (most recently it was Carol Smillie, sorry, Caz), in an instant I was utterly transfixed by Katie Price. A woman who, to me, is the ultimate celebrity and plays the showbiz game like no other.

I think it was around the time she ran the London Marathon dressed like a pair of lungs (it was to repesent the British Lung Foundation, with her mother Amy suffering idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) and I wrote about how she’d gone missing during the race, with the lungs not crossing the finish line, that I first thought, ‘who the eff in this woman and is she for real?’.

I wasn’t sold on the idea she’s wasn’t a caricature fooling us all with this ‘Katie Price’ schtick.

It soon dawned on me that love her or hate her, there is no denying Katie makes this world of manufactured celebrity perfection a little more interesting.

Please know that despite appearances, this is no sychophantic love letter to the Pricey. It’s more a revelation of utter intrigue. You can’t look away – and nor do you want to.

In the last 24 hours alone the woman has announced her engagement, landed a star spot on Celebrity MasterChef, and was forced to address claims from her ex-husband they were still married, while another ex-husband was sentenced to eight weeks in prison. The latter has nothing to do with Katie, but when headlines state ‘Katie Price’s ex-husband’, it proves the pull of her name.

In fact, while previously reading up on her life and career there was a period where I failed to believe she was even real and it’s hardly a brain tickler to understand why.

She’s gone from a reported £40million fortune – a purported net worth she’s addressed in the past saying ‘only I know’ – to being formally declared bankrupt; she’s endured what seems like endless setbacks with her so-called ‘Mucky Mansion’ and has been a victim of carjacking in South Africa, but also, randomly, she’s also a best-selling author and nearly represented the UK at Eurovision (very unrelated things, I know, but still, it boggles the mind all of this has happened to one person).

I mean, the woman broke both feet on holiday in Turkey after bloody jumping from a wall, for God’s sake. You can’t make this stuff up.

Aside from the WTF moments, Pricey has been through the wringer and somehow comes out the other side time and time again and I don’t pretend to understand how she’s not given up and gone to grow corn on a farm, totally off the grid.

You may argue she courts the press, be it through organised paparazzi shots (don’t get me started on the pictures of her naked on a waterfall on holiday with an ex), which she’s admitted to lining up in the past, or saucy tell-alls with tabloids, but, at the same time, I can’t help but root for the woman.

From three divorces, eight engagements and various legal cases, Katie’s personal life has been a punchline for decades now, aided in no small part by her reality shows over the years. But recently we saw a whole different side to her through Harvey and Me – the BBC documentary she fronted alongside 18-year-old son Harvey, who has Prader-Willi syndrome, as well as autism and is partially-blind.

I’d become accustomed over the small time of my knowledge of Katie to her being a loud, bolshy, precocious camera flash-chaser, but this rarely seen side stumped me. All of a sudden she went from a character to a real human, who has five children who clearly adore her, which, frankly, only piqued my interest more.

She lays bare the struggles she faces and in that way it’s hard for me to fault her on the foibles.

While I judge influencers who share some questionable Instagram sponsored posts, Katie Price can advertise tights that get rid of cellulite (I’m not a doctor, but I know that’s anatomically impossible) and I simply snort in a bemused way and think, ‘Ah, good on you Pricey, you do you.’

I know I’m not alone in these feels as mates who turn their nose up at the usual content I report on share in the fascination of Katie, asking me what the latest is before the bubbles have even been poured at bottomless brunch. And you only need to look at the kind of readership figures we see on each and every story Pricey-related to know the obsession is real.

As we see reality stars and Love Islanders come and go without making a lasting dent in the world of celebrity, the fact decades on we’re all still talking about Katie Price proves while she might trip up now and then, she’s played this industry better than any other.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.

Share your views in the comments below.

MORE : Katie Price shares worrying insight into cooking skills ahead of Celebrity MasterChef debut

MORE : I was bullied for sharing a name with Katie Price

MORE : As Katie Price gets engaged – who is her boyfriend Carl Woods?