Kerry Katona Ditches Katie Price Over Lies

When ’s claims that her new husband had been kidnapped in were found to be, as her friends told me, ‘total b******t’, she was quick to leap into action and defend herself online.

After days of Katie posting pleas for help finding her supposedly missing husband on social media, on Saturday my colleague in Dubai exposed her nonsense claims by revealing that Lee was in fact in prison after speaking with his father who lives in the UAE.

So, as anyone with common sense could have predicted, Lee wasn’t on the missing list and were not looking for him as Katie had claimed.

But the former glamour model isn’t one for letting the facts get in the way of a lucrative story keeping her in the headlines. Indeed, she’s been filling dozens of column inches over the past fortnight and sharing false information to The Sun – and trust me, she won’t do anything unless she gets a pay cheque in return.

So Katie swiftly addressed her 2.6million Instagram followers, telling them our story was ‘fake news’.

She wrote: ‘Lee is still missing, and his family know what’s going on and are working with the authorities involved.’

But now, just three days after denying the Daily Mail’s revelation, Katie once again took to social media – and The Sun’s website – to tell us what we already knew: Lee was in fact in prison.

Katie described a two-minute phone call she had with Lee, 43, from Dubai’s notorious Al Awir jail. During the call Katie told Lee she had been worried about him and that she loved him, though who knows whether it’s true or not.

But as Katie, 48, continues with her Press parade, sources close to her tell me they never believed her outlandish claims about Lee being kidnapped. In fact, they noted that her grasp on reality has been somewhat skewed in recent months.

Indeed, Katie’s life over the past few weeks has been anything but stable. From prioritising media opportunities and brand partnerships over family life to posting questionable statements on social media and jetting off to Dubai with a new husband she barely knew, her behaviour is precisely what’s pushing those who have long supported her to abandon her.

At the weekend, I was told how even Junior, 20, her loyal son from her first marriage to singer Peter Andre, is done with her after growing tired of her irresponsible behaviour – meeting Lee online and marrying him within days of first meeting in Dubai in January.

Friends say Junior is particularly furious about the collateral damage that the marriage caused, following a recent bombshell revelation that has destroyed the Price/Andre family.

And now I can reveal that one of Katie’s most dependable friends, Kerry Katona, has decided that enough is enough and has ditched her too.

Insiders tell me that Kerry is ‘horrified’ at the way Katie has behaved in recent months since meeting Lee.

Sources say Kerry, who rose to fame in girl group Atomic Kitten, feels that her former friend has ‘put herself first’ rather than the needs of her family.

‘Kerry had a tough upbringing, she really suffered,’ says a source close to both women. ‘And she has hated seeing what she has seen from Katie recently and she’s had enough.

‘She was horrified to hear Katie’s domestic news recently, and then to see her on Good Morning Britain just a few days after the life-changing news was confirmed to Katie. It appeared that Katie was more bothered about getting a fee to appear on television with her husband than she was worrying about what had happened in her life.

‘Kerry hasn’t always been mother of the year but she has really changed and grown up, but Katie hasn’t. Kerry is appalled at the way Katie lives her life. It wasn’t that long ago they were on tour around the UK together, right now it’s unlikely Kerry will speak to Katie again.’

While Kerry hasn’t explicitly lambasted Katie, in her New magazine column this week she says she wishes that her former friend had remained single after she split from Married At First Sight star JJ Slater in January, adding ‘but love is blind’.

Relations between Kerry and Katie have been tense since Lee punched her boyfriend Paolo Margaglione when they joined the newlyweds on their honeymoon in January.

While Lee denies he hit Paolo, an onlooker said that Lee seemed to be very angry and was shouting at Paolo. The situation got heated and Lee threw several punches before one of them landed Paolo ‘square on the head’, according to the source.

Now the truth about Lee’s fate seems uncertain. It’s currently understood that he was arrested on May 14 and detained on suspicion of espionage and has been held in Al Awir prison since.

Reports in The Sun say it’s expected that Lee will be freed from prison on Monday on the condition that he pays a ‘four-figure fine’ to the authorities. However, sources have said this is ‘very unlikely’ and that they expect him to be in prison for ‘quite some time’.

I’m even told that police forces in the south of England may want to question Lee which could prolong his time behind bars.