Katie Price: The rise and fall of the boundary-pushing glamour model
Page Three, reality TV, kids’ books, pop and perfume – you name it, Katie Price has done it. At the height of her fame in the 2000s, even Kim Kardashian revealed herself to be a fan of the star formerly known as Jordan.
The many faces of Katie Price
“Instantly watchable,” “smart,” “underestimated” – all words used to describe the living brand that is Katie Price.
Estimated to be worth around £45m at the peak of her career, Price is at once in-your-face fake, yet utterly authentic.
If verification of her global celebrity status was needed, Kim Kardashian – a woman who has played the fame game to perfection – tweeted in April 2009: “OMG Katie Price aka Jordan and her husband Peter are on my flight home from NYC!”
Maximising her natural assets, and using them to propel and sustain her career, Price has ridden the wave of fame for nearly three decades – an impressive feat in the notoriously fickle world of showbiz.
‘Her body is a business’
Author and Times columnist Sarah Ditum told Sky News Price has always been a step ahead of the crowd.
“She’s fascinating for the way she used her body to become famous and successful. And because it always seems quite cynical and calculating the decisions she’s made, to have the biggest boobs and to make that her job.”
But the writer of Toxic, Women, Fame And The Noughties says there is a glass ceiling concealed within Price’s unconventional career choice.
“Over time you run up to the limits of what’s possible. You can’t get bigger and bigger and bigger indefinitely – eventually someone’s going to come along and be even bigger or have even more recklessly huge implants.”
Ditum says she’s long been intrigued by Price, who she first saw on a poster on a younger male relative’s bedroom wall.
“It was interesting that someone had worked out how to turn her body into a business and how to get longevity out of being a Page 3 girl, because this was a time when Page 3 was contentious.”
And she says Price was a rare victor in the cut-throat world of glamour modelling.
“Katie Price was almost unique in that she came up through Page 3, and she found longevity in her career. That was what Page 3 was meant to be – the sell was always ‘this is an opportunity for working-class girls to make their way in the world and use their assets’. That was the fig leaf of it. She was the only person who really achieved it and I found that compelling.”
Ditum goes on: “She’s obviously smart. If you look at what Page 3 does to girls, it was a machine for taking teenagers and getting naked pictures of them, and that’s it – then sifting them out when they got too old. The lifespan of a Page 3 girl was tiny, and the number of them who achieved any kind of ongoing success out of that was infinitesimal, and she was one of them.
“That does not happen if you are dumb. She’s very intelligent at seeking publicity, she’s very intelligent at shaping her profile, and she’s very intelligent at using her body and using the extremity of her body to attract attention.
“But the cost of doing that is personally and physically really unimaginably huge. And there’s no long-termism built into it.”
Katie becomes Jordan
Born Katrina Amy Alexandra Alexis Infield in Brighton in 1978, Price (who took her surname from her stepfather) was a keen swimmer and equestrian.
Riding since the age of seven, she would go on to perform dressage at the Horse of the Year Show in 2008, entering the ring to Peter Andre’s Mysterious Girl. It was certainly not a foreseeable trajectory from Price’s early career choices.
She began modelling as a teen, but it was her appearance on Page 3 of The Sun in 1996, billed as Jordan and aged just 18, that made her a household name.
A savvy marketeer, she chose the name Jordan as she thought it sounded catchier than Katie – and she was right. It was an alter ego which would stay with her until she re-branded as Katie Price eight years later.
Frequently appearing in the popular lads’ mags of the late 90s and early 2000s, she was a staple in the tabloid press and celebrity magazines and featured in both the UK and US editions of Playboy, making the cover in the American edition.
Four years later she would undergo the first of many breast enhancements – going from her natural 32B to a 32C. A year later she’d have two more operations. A professional lifestyle choice, boob jobs would go on to punctuate her career.
Price has gone both up and down in size over the years, her largest being 2120 cubic centimetre implants in 2022 (that’s three times bigger than a standard E cup), before a slight reduction again this year. She says she has had 17 boob jobs to date.
When asked in a 2009 Sunday Times interview if she’d ever consider having a facelift, she was adamant she wouldn’t, saying: “I’ve seen them in LA, they look like freaks.”
She’s softened her attitude since then, undergoing multiple facial procedures, but insisting she held off until she was into her 40s (she’s now 46).
Her sister Sophie has called her love of cosmetic surgery “a form of self-harm,” while her mother Amy has said her oldest daughter suffers from body dysmorphia, a mental health condition the NHS notes can cause a person to spend a lot of time worrying about perceived flaws in their appearance.
Price herself told the Go Love Yourself! podcast last year: “I’ve never thought I’m good-looking, and I still don’t. Maybe I’ve got body dysmorphia, and [maybe] I have to admit I’ve got body dysmorphia because I’m always changing stuff. And I know sometimes when I’ve gone too far.”
She went on to say she doesn’t know “what goes on in my head with me and my body”, admitting she’s trying to achieve “something that’s probably not possible”.
Last year, Price said she’d been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a condition which according to the NHS can affect people’s behaviour and can lead sufferers to act on impulse.
Reality TV re-invention
Back in 2004, Price was already well-known to the public thanks to her regular appearances in the press.
She’d dated a series of low-level stars – Gladiator Ace, Another Level singer Dane Bowers, Pop Idol singer Gareth Gates to name but a few – and was regularly photographed out and about in the fashionable bars and clubs of London.
Ready for the next step in her career, it was her appearance on I’m A Celebrity that would transform her from a tabloid regular into a TV reality star – along with all the attention and fame that would come along with it.
Natalka Znak – a TV executive dubbed the queen of reality TV thanks to her creation of prime-time hits including I’m A Celebrity, Love Island and Hell’s Kitchen – says she jumped at the chance to get Price on I’m A Celeb back in 2004.
Now the CEO of three TV production companies, Znak tells Sky News: “I was always a massive fan of Katie, and I was super keen for her to be on the show.”
She calls Price “a classic good tabloid booking”, explaining: “You hadn’t seen lots of her back then, she was a Page 3 model, so you hadn’t seen her looking down and dirty, so it was interesting.”
A multi-BAFTA winner herself, Znak knows TV magic when she sees it.
“She was good to work with because she worked hard and she was always great on camera. You’d turn a camera on her and she was instantly watchable.
“We’ve dealt with a lot of difficult people, and I don’t think she was particularly difficult.”
A recognisable name, Price wasn’t a cheap booking. Znak can’t remember the exact amount, but admits, “we paid a lot of money for her”, adding that she was the highest-paid contestant to appear on the show at the time.
It was an outlay that was immediately reflected in the viewing figures.
Znak says: “I remember the instant boost in ratings. That series they were through the roof. It just worked. It was worth it…
“A lot of it was to do with having her on it. She was a really important part of it. And she was fantastic.”
The third series of the show was one of the most watched series to date, with viewing figures almost hitting 12 million (for comparison, last year’s viewing average was 7 million).
Znak says: “That show was such a huge hit. And then she went on to build a big career off the back of it.”
