She once said, “My middle name should be drama,” but even by her own standards, Page 3 girl Katie Price, who appeared on prime-time TV and inevitably captured our attention, lived a colorful life.
In short? Born Katrina Infield, she was a horse-loving teenager growing up in Brighton. At 18, she became the famous model Jordan, who underwent a series of breast augmentation surgeries and showed off her 32FFs. Since then, she has become a pop star, a TV presenter, a clothing designer, a best-selling author and a political campaigner. She has been divorced three times, has had a brush with cancer and claims she was carjacked, robbed and raped while filming in Swaziland. But now the 46-year-old is bankrupt and has a warrant out for her arrest after failing to attend a court hearing.
“Katie is so much fun but also complete chaos, and I’m amazed she’s still standing,” says Jessica*, who has worked closely with Price for more than 20 years.
“She is a master media manipulator who knows what sells, but she is also a nightmare to work with. She is very careless with money and does not listen to advice. She has many mental health issues and addictions – drink, drugs, surgery, men. She is always looking for the next high and has many unethical people around her who do not have her best interests in mind.”
This will be the second time the former model has declared bankruptcy. Price’s debts were listed as £3.5m in 2019, forcing her to give up assets including her pink Range Rover. And in March 2024, she went bankrupt again, this time over an unpaid tax bill of £750,000. In June, the 19-bedroom Horsham home nicknamed “Mucky Mansion”, which she bought for £1.3m in 2014, was repossessed by bailiffs.
Yet at one point she was celebrated as a self-made millionaire, a feminist icon and a shrewd entrepreneur who had turned big breasts into a big business. Price (who took her stepfather’s surname after her biological father left her when she was four) was reported to have amassed a fortune of £40million from modelling shoots, clothing brands, perfumes, books and reality TV appearances. Her business empire extended to her own glossy magazine Katie and a range of pink leg warmers for horses. Her 2007 novel Crystal, written with former journalist Rebecca Farnworth, beat out that year’s entire Booker Prize shortlist.
So where did all Price’s money go? When she was declared bankrupt in March, the 46-year-old was said to be £100,000 behind on mortgage payments. She was also believed to be spending £120,000 a year on housekeepers, gardeners and nannies, and around £25,000 a year on plastic surgery. She reportedly spends £1,500 a week on manicures and pedicures, £1,000 on hair appointments and £800 on massages every second day.
Numerous court cases will also have eaten up much of his income. Over the years, there have been accusations including an assault on a nightclub, breaching a restraining order, problems with planning permission and an illegal second-hand car dealership on his property.
He was also found guilty of a number of driving offences, including drink driving, speeding and driving without a valid licence and insurance. In 2021, he was banned from driving after overturning his BMW in a crash and was given a 16-week suspended sentence and 100 hours of community service. When the ban was lifted in 2023, he gifted himself a Hummer SUV, reportedly worth £50,000.
Then, of course, there’s the irony of all the cosmetic surgery that made her famous in the first place. The permanently tanned former glamour model has had 17 operations on her breasts and recently claimed to have the “biggest breasts in Britain”. She proudly shows off her fillers, botox, liposuction and other enhancements on Instagram, but has also admitted that her penchant for plastic surgery has probably led to body dysmorphia.
“I’ve gone too far, been there, done that with all the fillers,” she says. “I don’t have any fillers anymore. I’m getting my lips done and I’m getting Botox because my face is starting to look like a balloon. It’s really shiny. I’m starting to look like an alien.”
If that wasn’t enough to drain your wallet, then there’s the divorce: the mother of five has been married three times, and her divorces are likely to have cost her legal fees if nothing else. In 2005, the singer married Peter Andre in a lavish princess-themed ceremony at Highclere Castle, after she met him I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here.
This is when she transformed from Jordan to Katie and the couple had a long-running (and lucrative) reality show. Katie and PeterThey raised two children, Princess, now 17, and Junior, now 19. The couple released an album together and attempted to start a talk show, but they split in 2010.
Nine months later, she married mixed martial arts fighter Alex Reid in Las Vegas. The couple had a civil ceremony in England, which was filmed for a TV series, but parted ways less than two years later. Price then met stripper Kieran Hayler online and they married just two months later in the Bahamas. They have two children, Jett, 10, and Bunny, nine. However, in 2014, Price discovered Hayler was in a relationship with her best friend of 20 years, Jane Pountney. Price and Hayler renewed their vows a year later, but filed for divorce in 2018.
Price called this period his “breaking point,” and he recently explained to a crowd at the launch of his new book: This is mineHe said he attempted suicide in the toilet.
“I didn’t want to be here anymore. I thought, ‘What’s the point? There’s no one here, no one’s helping, no one understands what I’m feeling,'” he said. Around this time, he entered The Priory for alcohol and cocaine addiction and received a formal diagnosis of ADHD and PTSD.
Price, by her own admission, “can’t be single” and has been linked to multiple high-profile men, including Danny Cipriani, Gareth Gates and former Premier League footballer Dwight Yorke. The latter is the father of her son Harvey, now 22, who is autistic, has vision-impairing Septo-optic dysplasia, and also Prader-Willi syndrome.
“The one thing I will say about her is that what she did for Harvey was incredible,” Jessica says. “She took care of this disabled child 24/7 all by herself, and she never once complained about it.”
In 2017, she launched Harvey’s Law, an online petition to make online harassment a crime, after her son was bullied on social media. Price revealed she would love to have a sixth child and is now considering surrogacy after three unsuccessful rounds of IVF.
“I tried IVF last year and it failed – so I’ll try again, try again. I’m not giving up. I need more babies,” she said.
But as Katie’s spending has increased, TV work and modelling opportunities have also dwindled. Her clothing brand House of KP went silent in 2019, splitting with her other brand KP Boutique after earning just £13. According to insiders, the brains behind the launch of Katie’s brand was actually her brilliant manager Claire Powell, whom she shares with Peter Andre. Price split from Powell in 2009, later blaming her for the breakdown of the marriage.
“It was like Pete was married to two women, Claire and me. And it was suffocating me,” he said.
Now Price has turned to other sources of income to make ends meet, never one to shy away from finding things in her life that she can commodify. Price has an OnlyFans page and recently received £53 from fans for a video of herself naked in the shower. She has a perfume business called Scented by Katie Price, an equestrian company and has a podcast with her sister Sophie. The Katie Price Show.
Price has sold thousands of items on used clothing marketplace Depop, including a T-shirt that says ‘Bad Bitches Link Up’ for £6.05. Her website Katie Price Merch sells make-up masterclasses and, at one point, sold previously worn lingerie and her pink wedding dress from her marriage to Peter Andre on social media.
“What happened to Katie Price is so shameful,” says public relations consultant Natalie Trice. “It’s very similar to what we see with other stars who have had a lot of trauma in their lives: fame puts everything in the spotlight and to everyone watching it looks like a car crash. Another court hearing, another pink Range Rover, another mansion.”
Trice said if she were to give Price advice, she would suggest a long vacation without paparazzi or plastic surgery.
“He’s got to think about what he wants his legacy to be, and there are so many positive things he can do with his platform, as we saw when he campaigned for Harvey,” Trice says. “If he can move away from the salacious headlines, there’s so much support and love for him from the British people.”
“Katie has to be very vulnerable and out of the public eye,” Jessica says. “I hope she can get back on her feet but I worry it’s going to be very hard to come back from this.”
Despite an arrest warrant being issued for him, Price is currently on a “business vacation” in Turkey with his current partner, reality TV star JJ Slater. Married At First Sightand his eldest son Harvey, who reportedly went there to have further surgery on his eyes and under his chin after surgeons in Brussels refused to operate on him.
Price said on Instagram: “While I am fully aware of the seriousness of my current personal financial situation with my bankruptcy, I am currently working on a documentary about corrective surgery. I am not ashamed or embarrassed. I own my situation and am trying my best to get out of it and get things back on track.”
Another dramatic chapter in the long, beloved soap opera series of Katie Price’s life.
*Name has been changed