Sunday Mercury Interview: Katie Price aka Jordan

Oct 6 2008 by Roz Laws, Sunday Mercury

EVERY aspect of her life, from her plastic surgery to her marriage, has been laid bare for the public.

So it comes as quite a surprise when Katie Price tells me: “We are private people.”

Surely there’s little left for us to discover about Katie, aka glamour model Jordan, and her husband Peter Andre?

If she’s not selling every cough and splutter of her life to glossy magazines, she’s opening up her home to the TV cameras for the ITV2 reality show Katie & Peter: The Next Chapter.

We witness their rows and learn when they last had sex. But, Katie declares, there are some things the cameras don’t catch.

“I never ask them to leave,” she admits. “They just film whatever, otherwise it wouldn’t be a proper reality show. It’s real, that’s why people like it. We’re not in charge of the editing and we don’t see it before it goes out.

“But there is a lot I draw the line at and a lot they don’t film. We are private people. They don’t film the kids being bathed and changed – that’s our family time together.”

Katie also says she likes nothing more than getting home, putting on her pyjamas, taking off her make-up and slobbing out in front of a DVD with Peter.

She has three children – Harvey, six, from her relationship with former Aston Villa footballer Dwight Yorke, plus Junior, three, and one-year-old Princess Tiaami with pop star Pete.

She has her hands full looking after them, plus dealing with her many business interests.

She’s written (or at least helped to write) 23 books – 17 for children (11 on Perfect Ponies and six on Mermaids and Pirates), three novels and three volumes of autobiography.

She’s launched a new range of equestrian clothes, mainly in pink, a range of underwear, mainly in pink, and bedlinen for Matalan, which is, unsurprisingly, mostly pink.

She has two brands of perfume and plans to launch a Katie Price credit card, cosmetics and electrical beauty products.

Her business acumen, which has netted her a fortune of more than £30 million, even goes as far as charging £25 for membership of her website so you can read her blog.

Her many talents also include singing, but even she admits she’s not quite as good at that as her other gifts.

Like the rest of the country, she cringes when watching footage of her performing Not Just Anybody on the Eurovision Song Contest: Making Your Mind Up show.

Five months pregnant and wearing a shiny bright pink catsuit, she was the bookies’ favourite to win the chance to represent the UK in 2005, but she was horribly flat and the honour went to Javine. Who, if there was any consolation for Katie, came third from last in the contest.

At the time, Katie blamed her defeat on the fact she was pregnant and people didn’t think she was sexy enough with a bump. But now she’s changed her tune.

“The only think I’ve ever regretted doing in my life was Eurovision,” she confesses. “When I see clips of it, I think it’s just awful.

“But I did make a charity album afterwards to prove I can sing.

“I like to be in control of everything I do.”

She admits she’s nervous about her latest venture because she has to put her trust in something she doesn’t have total control over – her horse, Jordan’s Glamour Girl.

The pair are coming to Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre on Friday, performing Dressage To Music at the Horse Of The Year Show.

Katie knows she hasn’t been welcomed by everyone in the horsey world, but is thrilled to have met another dressage rider with the same name.

“There was some confusion when it got out that I was doing dressage, as she’s been doing it longer than me.

“I met the other Katie the other day and she’s really nice. She bought me a lovely pink riding jacket, she said ‘I saw this and thought of you!’.”

So is there anything left for Katie to conquer? It was reality TV which changed her image – and got her a husband – when she went on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and it’s clearly a medium she enjoys.

There were rumours she and Peter were going to appear on Strictly Come Dancing, and while the idea might have appealed, her business head got in the way.

“We could never do that because we’re contracted exclusively to ITV,” she sighs.