She once said, “My middle name should be drama,” but even by her own standards, Katie Price – the Page 3 girl who made her way to primetime TV and, inevitably, into all our eyes – has led a colorful life.
The nutshell version? Born Katrina Infield, she was a horse-mad teenager growing up in Brighton. At 18, she became Jordan, the glamour model who rose to fame with a series of breast enlargement operations and flaunted her 32FFs. Since then, she’s been a pop star, TV presenter, clothing designer, best-selling author and political campaigner. She’s had three divorces, a bout with cancer and claims she was carjacked, robbed and raped while filming in Swaziland. But now the 46-year-old is bankrupt with a warrant out for her arrest after failing to turn up to court.
“Katie is a lot of fun, but she’s also a mess and I’m amazed she’s still standing,” Jessica*, who has worked closely with Price for more than 20 years, says occasionally.
“She is a master at manipulating the media and 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 chasing the next high and there are many unethical people around her who do not have her best interests at heart.”
This is the second time the former model has gone bankrupt. In 2019, Price’s debts were listed at £3.5 million, forcing her to forfeit several assets, including her pink Range Rover. And in March 2024, she was declared bankrupt again, this time over an unpaid £750,000 tax bill. In June, her 19-bedroom Horsham home, nicknamed the “Mucky Mansion”, which she bought for £1.3 million in 2014, was seized by bailiffs.
Yet at one point she was feted as a self-made millionaire, a feminist icon and a shrewd entrepreneur who had turned large breasts into a major business. Price (she took her stepfather’s surname after her biological father left her when she was four) was reportedly worth £40 million, thanks to her modelling, clothing lines, perfumes, books and appearances on reality TV shows. Her business empire expanded to include her own glossy magazine – “Katie” – and a line of pink horse leg warmers. Her 2007 novel Crystal – written with former journalist Rebecca Farnworth – topped the entire shortlist for that year’s Booker Prize.
Where did all Price’s money go? When she was declared bankrupt in March, the 46-year-old was said to have fallen £100,000 behind on mortgage payments. She was also said to have spent £120,000 a year on housekeepers, gardeners and nannies – and around £25,000 a year on plastic surgery. She reportedly spent £1,500 a week on manicures and pedicures, £1,000 on hair appointments and £800 on massages every other day.
Her many lawsuits will also have wiped out much of her income. Over the years, there has been a nightclub assault, a restraining order violation, building permit issues, and an illegal used car dealership on her property, among other charges.
She has also been found guilty of a string of driving offences, including drink driving, speeding and driving without a valid licence and insurance. In 2021, she was banned from driving after she flipped her BMW in a crash, and was given a 16-week suspended prison sentence and 100 hours of community service. When the ban was lifted in 2023, she treated herself to a Hummer SUV, reportedly worth £50,000.
Then, of course, there’s the irony of the cost of all the cosmetic surgery that made her famous in the first place. The permanently tanned former glamour model has undergone 17 operations on her breasts and recently claimed she has “the biggest boobs in Britain.” She’s proudly shown off her fillers, Botox, liposuction and other enhancements on Instagram, but has also admitted that her obsession with plastic surgery is likely leading to body dysmorphia.
“I’ve gone too far, I’ve been there, done that with all the fillers,” she says. “I don’t have any fillers now. I do it in my lips and I have Botox because it’s gotten to the point where my face looks like a balloon. Really shiny. I’m starting to look like an alien.”
As if that wasn’t enough to break the bank, there’s also the divorces: the mother of five has been married three times, and her divorces have probably involved legal fees, if anything. In 2005, she married singer Peter Andre in a lavish princess-themed ceremony at Highclere Castle, after meeting him on I’m a celebrity…get me out of here.
This was when she changed her personality from Jordan to Katie and the couple had a long-running (and lucrative) reality show, Katie and Peterwhere they raised their two children, Princess, now 17, and Junior, now 19. The couple released an album together and tried 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 also had a formal ceremony in the UK, which was filmed for her TV series, but split less than two years later. Price met stripper Kieran Hayler online and they married just two months later in the Bahamas. They have two children, Jett, 10, and Bunny, 9. But in 2014, Price discovered that Hayler was having an affair 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 has called this period her “breaking point,” recently revealing to an audience at the launch of her new book, This is methat she attempted suicide in the toilet.
“I just didn’t want to be here anymore. I thought, ‘What’s the point? There’s no one here, no one to help, no one understands what I’m feeling,'” she said. Around this time, she checked into The Priory for alcohol and cocaine addiction and was formally diagnosed with ADHD and PTSD.
By her own admission, Price “can’t be single” and has been linked to several 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 and has visual impairment due to septo-optic dysplasia, as well as Prader-Willi syndrome.
“One thing I can say about her is that what she did for Harvey was unbelievable,” Jessica said. “She took care of this disabled child 24/7 and she never complained about it.”
In 2017, she launched Harvey’s Law, an online petition to criminalise online abuse after her son was bullied on social media. Price has revealed she would love to have a sixth child and is now considering surrogacy after three failed rounds of IVF.
“I tried IVF last year and it failed – so I’m going to try again, try again. I’m not giving up. I need more babies,” she said.
But as Katie’s expenses mounted, her TV work and modelling opportunities dwindled. Her clothing line, House of KP, was shuttered in 2019 and she exited her other brand, KP Boutique, after earning just £13. Insiders say it was actually the canny manager she shared with Peter Andre – Claire Powell – who was the mastermind behind building the Katie brand. Price split from Powell in 2009 and has subsequently blamed her for the breakdown of the marriage.
“It was like Pete was married to two women, Claire and me. And it just suffocated me,” she said.
Now Price, never short of things to market in her life, has turned to other sources of income to make ends meet. Price has an OnlyFans page, where she recently charged fans £53 for a video of her naked in the shower. She has a perfume company called Scented by Katie Price, as well as an equestrian business, and she makes a podcast with her sister, Sophie, called The Katie Price Show.
Price has sold thousands of items on secondhand clothing marketplace Depop, including a T-shirt with the words “Bad Bitches Link Up” for £6.05. On her website, Katie Price Merch, she sells make-up masterclasses and at one point sold her previously worn lingerie and her pink wedding dress from her nuptials to Peter Andre on social media.
“It’s such a shame what we’ve seen happen to Katie Price,” says PR consultant Natalie Trice. “It’s very similar to what we’ve seen with other stars who have had a lot of trauma in their lives: fame puts everything in the spotlight and to anyone watching it looks like a car crash. It’s another lawsuit, another pink Range Rover, another mansion.”
Trice says that if she were advising Price, she would suggest a long vacation, without paparazzi — or plastic surgery.
“She should think about what she wants her legacy to be, and there are some very positive things she could do with her platform, as we saw when she campaigned for Harvey,” Trice said. “There’s a lot of support and love for her from the British public if she can stay away from the racy headlines.”
“Katie is very vulnerable and should stay out of the public eye,” Jessica said. “I hope she gets back on her feet, but I fear this will be too difficult to come back from.”
Despite an arrest warrant for her, Price is currently on a “work holiday” to Turkey with her current partner, reality show star JJ Slater Married at first sightand her eldest son, Harvey. She reportedly traveled there to undergo further operations on her eyes and under her chin after surgeons in Brussels refused to operate on her.
On Instagram, Price said: “While I am fully aware of the severity of my current personal financial situation with my bankruptcy, I am away today working on a documentary about corrective surgery. I am not ashamed of it nor embarrassed by it. I own my situation and I am doing my best to get out of it and make things right.”
Another dramatic episode in the long and very public soap opera that is Katie Price’s life.
*Name has been changed