Almost a month into her fourth marriage, and the evidence is already piling up that Katie Price has married, to put it bluntly, a wrong ‘un.
As readers may recall, she wed Lee Andrews, the son of a Nottinghamshire coal miner who has claimed to be everything from a Cambridge-educated billionaire to an actor in the running for the next James Bond, after a mere week-long romance. He had proposed to another ex girlfriend just months before in exactly the same rose petal-strewn spa at the five-star Jumeirah Burj Al Arab hotel where he went down on one knee to Katie.
In the period since her nuptials, Price’s behaviour has become increasingly erratic.
Worrying pictures this week showed her posing in the Dubai sunshine on her honeymoon in a barely-there orange bikini, her legs impossibly slender, her arms spindles. Despite her 18th boob job and a recent £2,000 ‘bum lift’, she looked fragile.
Despite this physical frailty - I’m told, despite Price’s denials, that this is down to her use of the weight-loss jab Ozempic - the glamour model has decided that now is the time to embark on IVF so she can have a baby with Andrews. She may be a 47-year-old mother of five, but she is, say friends, ‘obsessed’ with the idea of having more children.
More than this, her future, she has told friends and family, lies in Dubai with Andrews and she is hoping to take some of her children out there to live - something which has horrified her loved ones.
Why re-locate to Dubai?
Those close to Price tell me they think such a move is because she has been ‘brainwashed’ and manipulated by Andrews, who they despise.
Katie Price wed Lee Andrews, who has claimed to be everything from a Cambridge-educated billionaire to an actor in the running for the next James Bond, after a mere week-long romance
In the period since her nuptials, Price’s behaviour has become increasingly erratic
One tells me ‘he has the charm of a gnat,’ while another says, frankly, ‘he’s as thick as s***’.
In a further bizarre twist, some even think that Price’s behaviour is so out of character that she has been put under a mysterious spell.
Some friends have already been cut off by Price after expressing their concern for her. And virtually all her inner circle harbour deep worries about Andrews, believing he is nothing more than a conman, who will ruin her financially. They fear it’s only a matter of time before Andrews - who claims to have a PhD from Cambridge and to have worked with Elon Musk - will ‘go in for the big take’ and leave Price penniless.
Indeed, they point out that at the moment she is ‘paying for everything’ in Dubai and they believe that would continue if she was to stay out there.
They have begged Price to leave Andrews and return to the UK to be with her loving family and her children - the older ones, I am told, are ‘absolutely besides themselves’.
And for good reason. Included among the many recent revelations about Andrews’ chequered past life is a report that he is banned from leaving the United Arab Emirates. He reportedly spent three weeks in a Dubai jail for allegedly forging an ex-girlfriend’s signature to take out a £200,000 loan in her name without her knowledge last year. He denies this.
Indeed, a stream of Andrews’ exes have also gone public since he married Price, warning her to run for the hills rather than make a life with him.
‘Lee is vile,’ said one friend of hers. ‘But Katie is absolutely certain that she wants to start a new life out in Dubai with him.
‘Right now I don’t think it could get any worse. We are worried she will never come home.’
So pronounced are her friends’ concerns for her that they worry Price - who has a history of severe mental turmoil - may once again try to take her own life if her relationship with Andrews goes wrong.
Included among the many recent revelations about Andrews’ chequered past life is a report that he is banned from leaving the United Arab Emirates
A stream of Andrews’ exes have also gone public since he married Price, warning her to run for the hills
While she has a reputation for ‘taking no nonsense’ say friends, they report a recent personality change in her and that she is showing signs of being uncharacteristically ‘gullible’ when it comes to Andrews.
‘She’s choosing to believe what she wants. We keep telling her he’s no good. We strongly believe Lee is brainwashing her.
‘But Katie has fallen for him hook, line and sinker. She is being so gullible and thinks she can take the kids out there and live with him,’ says a friend, who is desperately hoping to see her soon.
‘Katie keeps changing her plan to come home. She is now looking at staying there and at ways to get some of her children over to Dubai to stay with her. We are so worried about her but she won’t listen to anyone.
‘None of us can get through to her. She wants to believe in this fantasy, but actually the worry is that when she realises the reality it will destroy her.
‘Katie has tried to kill herself before and we are terrified she will do it again once Lee shows her his true colours. We are beside ourselves that this is what she could do.
‘Of course, things have been bad for her in the past, but we have never seen anything like this.’
It also appears, much to her family and friends’ concern, that Andrews has a temper. When Price’s best friend, former pop star Kerry Katona, made a trip last week to Dubai to see her, she took her 33-year-old boyfriend Paolo Margaglione with her.
It was then reported that Andrews punched him in an altercation, which led Margaglione to cut his trip short and fly home just 14 hours later.
One source told The Sun that the bust-up happened after Margaglione deemed Andrews to be talking to Price in an ‘aggressive manner’.
‘Lee was having some cross words with Katie. Paolo then appeared and stepped in. Lee seemed to be very angry and was shouting at him,’ they said.
‘It all got very heated and Lee threw some punches and one of them landed Paolo square on the head. It was crazy to see this play out. The situation seemed to be pretty heated but then it erupted very quickly.’
Both Price and Andrews deny the altercation occurred.
But says one friend of Price’s about the incident: ‘He’s just awful. He’s a liar and we think he is dangerous.’
Friends report a recent personality change in Price and that she is showing signs of being uncharacteristically ‘gullible’ when it comes to Andrews
Observers say Andrews has been ‘piggybacking off his wife for fame and followers’
One shouldn’t forget, however, that Price’s career is founded on the bricks and mortar of chaos and drama.
Once worth some £40million thanks to an empire built on modelling, tell-all memoirs and media appearances, Price now monetises every twist and turn of her life with regular social media updates.
But for all the canny PR, she also has genuine vulnerability.
Friends say it is Price’s media cachet that is the attraction for Andrews.
Indeed, on Thursday, he gloated about his huge social media engagement on Instagram, posting analytics which showed he has been getting over 51million daily views across his platforms, which now constantly name-check and endorse Price.
Observers say he has been ‘piggybacking off his wife for fame and followers’ - and he is said to have made thousands from sponsored social media posts.
I’m told Price’s children, Junior, 20, and Princess, 18, had no idea that their mother had plans to wed again and at first wrote it off as a publicity stunt, as she and Andrews had met one another on social media.
They speak to their mother regularly and, as much as they adore her, sources tell me that they are in shock at her latest move.
‘She’s their mum and they love her but they are very worried at how this is all going to end,’ says a source. ‘They will stand up for Katie until they are blue in the face but it is hard.’
Meanwhile, her mother Amy and younger sister Sophie are said to be gripped with fear for her - to such an extent that Amy is desperate to fly to Dubai to bring her back to Britain, but is held back by her incurable lung condition, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which causes lungs to thicken and scar and makes breathing problematic. It requires oxygen therapy and makes travel impossible.
‘Katie has always has Amy’s full support,’ says a source. ‘She has been at Katie’s side throughout her life and just wants to scoop her up and make it better.
‘Sadly, it’s not that easy. Amy is able to see her Instagram but that’s about it.’
So baffling do many of her friends and family find Price’s decision to wed Andrews that they even think there might be witchcraft at play.
‘It all sounds very woo woo,’ says one pal. ‘But something has changed in Katie and it feels like something has been done to her. We just want our Katie back.’
It’s surely a far-fetched theory - but for Price’s desperate friends and family it’s something to cling to, as they watch her spiral, seemingly out of control, to ever lower depths.
