Katie Price’s Shocking TV Defense Leaves Friends Heartbroken

It was a sight that left those close to feeling bewildered, devastated and furious all at once.

Dressed in a pink tracksuit and showing off her most recent , the glamour model appeared on the famous sofa, where she was quizzed about her marriage to her fourth husband, , by hosts and Ed Balls.

Andrews, though, had failed to turn up to the TV interview – after he was detained and stopped from leaving by airport officials.

There is ongoing speculation that the self-styled ‘billionaire’ is unable to leave the UAE after allegedly forging his ex-girlfriend Dina Taji’s signature to secure a £200,000 loan – something he’s strongly denied.

Despite his notable absence on the show on Tuesday, Katie’s husband of four months still dominated the conversation as she was asked whether he had been introduced to her five children yet.

Katie defended Andrews’s no-show, insisting he didn’t make the flight because he had ‘business stuff’ to do. 

But I can reveal that the star received some distressing domestic news last Friday – just four days before her television appearance – which has left her most loyal allies ‘disgusted’ and ‘deeply upset’.

Sources close to Katie tell me that her circle has been left ‘startled’ by her composure in the face of the news – and now fear that she may have been too quick to emotionally detach herself from something so seismic.

‘There is absolute despair for Katie now,’ says my insider. ‘The fact that she has heard such devastating news and yet a few days later went on live television to talk about her new boyfriend [Andrews], who most of her friends don’t like, is so very worrying.

‘Even those of Katie’s gang who have defended her to the hilt are now questioning everything. This has happened and yet she’s on the television, presumably in exchange for cash, to talk glowingly about Lee.

‘It is unfathomable. She seems to have detached herself from the reality of life and instead it seems she is living in a “dream world” with Lee.

‘Her poor mum, her poor siblings. Their hearts are breaking for her situation. What makes it all the worse is that she is just carrying on as normal.’

I am not able to share the details of the news for legal reasons, but for those involved, it is life-changing. And fans of Katie, who has spent much of the last four months in the Middle East, would be very surprised.

Katie, 47, once again put her torment aside when she sat down with her younger sister Sophie – who makes no secret of her fears for her older sibling – on her podcast, The Katie Price Show, that aired today.

It will be somewhat heartening to Katie’s nearest and dearest to hear that she finally had a pop at Andrews, 42, over that humiliating GMB interview and for his failure to arrive in the UK. In fact, it is the first time that she has said anything mildly critical of Andrews in public.

In the episode titled, ‘My Husband Made Me Look Like A D**k’, Katie insisted that Andrews had told her he would be flying in for their GMB interview, and claimed that on Monday ‘he was at the airport and couldn’t get on the flight’ because of an issue with his visa.

She explained that she ‘phoned the Foreign Office up and gave them Lee’s name and date of birth and they said that they had detained a British man’.

However, Sophie insisted that ‘he is massively mugging you off and he has done it publicly on live TV’, to which Katie conceded: ‘I said to him “You’ve made me look a d***, you’ve made yourself look a d***”.

‘It’s now become a soap opera, some form of EastEnders of is he coming isn’t he, it’s all been built up.

‘This is why I want relationships more private. But at the end of the day, it is between me and him, not anyone else.’

Katie went on to say that she has told her husband ‘he needs to make it to the UK because if he doesn’t there is something not right going on’.

Friends of Katie’s tell me that they know one day she will regret her actions – and lament her relationship with Andrews, who in addition to claiming to be fabulously rich, also boasts about having a PhD from Cambridge University.

In January, the star stunned her circle when she married Andrews at the One & Only Royal Mirage, a hotel on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah Island. Their nuptials came just days after a whirlwind engagement, which she posted all over social media.