Читать книгу Katie v Peter - Emily Herbert - Страница 7

Katie was ready to party. The initial shock of the break was behind her and now she needed to chill out, let her hair down and have a bit of fun. And so she set off for Ibiza, the biggest party island of them all, with a group of friends in tow. ‘Yee haa, I’m going to have some fun at last,’ she declared. ‘It’s been a fucking nightmare, but I’m going to have a wicked time. I haven’t had a full week’s holiday for ten years. I am up for it!’ She was to prove as good as her word.

In typical Katie fashion, this was not just a holiday: she was combining the trip with a photo shoot for a new calendar. But she was intending to party, and party she did: very conspicuously, very overtly and, at times, in a manner so attention-seeking that she could hardly move for the surrounding press. The message was clear: Katie was back on the singles scene, totally over her husband and the world could make what they liked of her behaviour. And it did.

The party set off in mid-June on a 6.10am, easyJet flight from Gatwick, during which Katie had to endure the indignity of being frisked because her TV earpiece – the reality crew were following her every move – set off the detector alarm. Nor was she allowed to board the plane carrying a 150ml can of hairspray because it was over the 100ml limit. However, once on board, despite the early hour, everyone was clearly determined to enjoy themselves: the group swiftly got through four bottles of champagne, before Katie treated them to pictures of a naked man on her mobile.

‘I hope I don’t get into too much trouble,’ she said gleefully. ‘I’m determined to have fun. I’ve packed my slippers in case I have a quiet night in, but I doubt it.’

However, she managed to provoke yet more attention while studying an in-flight questionnaire, in particular, the question ‘Are you pregnant?’ ‘Whoops, yes, I’m pregnant!’ she said, before a spokesperson hastily reassured everyone that she was joking. And so they were off.

Not everyone was charmed, however. The cabin crew asked her if she’d pose for pictures with fans on board, but she declined. Nor was she in the mood to sign autographs. The airline staff became pretty fed up about it all. ‘We can confirm Katie did fly with us to Ibiza – and also that unfortunately she was one of the grumpiest celebrities we’ve ever dealt with,’ said an easyJet spokesperson. Katie herself let it rest.

As the repercussions of the break-up continued to spread, another element that would occur repeatedly throughout the months ahead was the steady stream of revelations about the couple, especially Katie’s private life. Now was to be just such a case: it turned out that Katie had been on medication for much of her married life, but was now coming off it.

‘I’m doing really well, focusing on the kids, my work, keeping fit and moving forward,’ she commented. ‘And, after four years, I’m no longer taking my anti-depressants. It has taken me four years to get to the healthy place I am now. I’m in a really good place.’ Previously, her depression had not been widely known about, but one thing was clear: Katie wanted the rest of the world to know that it had been a problem throughout her relationship with Pete.

Once in situ, she headed for the Es Vive hotel where she was staying, one of the island’s premier spots for partying (with a no-children policy), and donned a black bikini to relax by the pool. She and the rest of her gang ordered jugs of sangria. ‘Katie feels absolutely drained,’ said a friend. ‘She’s had an emotionally knackering five weeks and wants to let her hair down. Kate believes she works bloody hard for her money and deserves this trip. She’s not got the kids with her, so she’s not tied down. If she wants to go out every night and get hammered, then why shouldn’t she? After all, she’s a single lady now. Kate wants to treat all her mates and paint the town pink.’

However, it didn’t all go according to plan. Katie clearly wanted to show her wild side again, but this didn’t go down well with everyone: during the day she posed for pictures on Bora Bora beach, but one question was repeatedly heard from onlookers: ‘Where’s Pete?’

That evening, the party went to the Ibiza Rocks hotel to watch the Ting Tings. They then moved on to the Eden nightclub in San Antonio, where they added vodka, Jack Daniel’s and more champagne, this time Veuve Clicquot, to the mix, having been given £300 ‘buckets’ by the club. By this time, a clearly tired and emotional Katie started to gyrate up against a pole, before hooking up with male model Anthony Lowther, 28, who had arrived at the establishment dressed in tartan leggings, an outfit almost as eye-catching as the one Katie was wearing. The two were seen kissing – although Katie was also spotted kissing another man – and it was clear that they were getting on.

‘There was chemistry between them,’ said an onlooker. ‘He was pouring booze into her mouth from the bottle, while she laughed and shrieked around. When she jumped on to the podium next to the DJ booth, she moved her body up and down seductively against his. Katie was acting as if her behaviour was totally normal; it was like she was putting on a show for everyone there. She was saying, “I can do this now, I’ll be divorced in five and a half weeks!”’

Anthony picked Katie up and deposited her on a sofa at the back of the club, at which point her blue dress rose up over her head, exposing her G-string. Undeterred, she then started flashing her breasts. Finally, as the clock was heading for 5am, the two of them went back to the Es Vive hotel, while the others partied on.

Naturally, onlookers were deeply shocked. ‘Katie could barely stand and kept putting her sailor’s cap on people’s heads in the queue,’ said one. ‘But when this pretty brunette went up to say hello, she just lost the plot.’

Katie had certainly got the eyes of the world upon her – although not, holidaying as he was in Cyprus with the children (and without the daily papers), Pete’s.

The next day, there was more relaxing by the pool and more for the photo shoot, partly on the beach and partly back at the hotel, where other guests were irritated that they were banned from using the cameras on their phones. A speedboat ride followed, also for the calendar shoot, and Katie found time to update her Facebook entry, rather bizarrely threatening to shave off all her hair. But it was at night that she was coming into her own and so it proved again: that evening, the party was seen swigging sangria at Es Vive, before heading off for a three-hour dinner at Angelos restaurant. Once again, Anthony Lowther was present and happy to confirm that they were having fun.

‘I’m having a great time with Katie,’ he said. ‘She’s getting on with her life and enjoying herself without Pete. I know her from a few photo-shoot jobs I’ve done with her and we’ve always got on. She’s having a blast and is enjoying being single again.’

The two were spotted taking a late-night walk around the harbour, before returning to the hotel. Friends, meanwhile, asserted that she had every right to behave as she pleased.

‘Katie is back to her best, being Jordan,’ said one. ‘She doesn’t care what people think, she’s out to shock. She may be in the middle of an acrimonious divorce, but it’s not getting her down. Instead, she joked she was horny and wanted to “get some” after a barren spell with Peter. Anthony picked up on the cue and was very attentive to her.’

The next day, the photo shoot moved to the nearby tranquil island of Formentera. Meanwhile, back in Britain, something of a backlash was beginning to develop. Every day, as pictures appeared of Katie behaving increasingly wildly, there were also shots of Pete, playing with the children in Cyprus. The contrast couldn’t have been greater, and not everyone was on Katie’s side – in fact, far from it. After all, technically, she and Pete were still married, and what about the kids? What would they make of photos of their mother so very publicly out on the razz?

What made matters even worse was that, while Katie looked as if she was having the time of her life (although, in truth, her out-of-control behaviour almost certainly meant that she was still not dealing with her grief), Pete was so visibly upset. On arriving in Cyprus, he discovered that his mother Thea had flown to Larnaca from Australia with his sister Debbie to offer him moral support. Visibly moved, Pete wept on his mother’s shoulder. ‘He had no idea his mum was coming, so, when he went to collect his sister at the airport and saw Thea, it was all too much,’ revealed a friend. ‘The emotion of the past six weeks caught up with him, and, as much as he tried to hold it together, he simply couldn’t. Thea will give him some much-needed TLC, and wants to look after him as only a mother can. She’ll do him a world of good!’

Meanwhile, back in Ibiza, love’s young dream was going through a sticky patch. Katie certainly wasn’t about to clean up her act: there was another drinking session, this time Jack Daniel’s and coke, as she informed startled holidaymakers, ‘I am Katie Price now – demure, sophisticated and elegant. I am going to walk properly, but, after midnight, Jordan is coming out and you know what that means! Have some of that, you motherfuckers! I can drink what I like, and do what I like. Sorry, Mum!’

Demure wasn’t quite the word for it: she flashed her dress at the camera crew before continuing to down some more shorts.

Katie was certainly as good as her word, however, when it came to turning into Jordan. A stream of bottles of Veuve Clicquot was seen being taken into her room, before she emerged at 10pm, already a little worse for wear. With her entourage in tow, she headed for Pacha nightclub, where she and Anthony danced between bouts of throwing back vodka lemonades. Katie was also seen kissing a strange girl, before she and Anthony headed back to the hotel, where they had one almighty row: ‘I don’t give a fuck any more!’ yelled Katie, and at around 5.30am fellow guests complained to the hotel management about the racket coming from her bedroom. Hotel staff banged on her door in an effort to get the couple to keep the noise down, but this was all to no avail.

Unsurprisingly, shooting for the calendar was scrapped the next day while Katie slept it off. Now the cluckerati in the UK press were really beginning to have a go, with Pete being congratulated for walking out on a woman who seemed out of control; all the papers, meanwhile, were covered in shots of Katie with her head in the sand, bum held high.

When Katie did eventually surface, she didn’t make matters any better for herself, though. First, she visited Sa Majesté, a specialist gay and lesbian sex shop, where she bought a range of PVC outfits, whips and so on. Next stop was Inkadelic Salon, where she had the tattoo of Pete’s name on her left wrist deleted with a cross.

‘She looked like she was on a mission,’ remarked an onlooker. ‘I think it’s fair to say she was trying to send out a message to Peter. She wants to leave him in no doubt that what they had is over. And there won’t be any fairytale reconciliation; that’s it now for her. Done and dusted!’

But it certainly didn’t look as if things would last with Anthony. The row they’d had the previous night appeared to have shaken him, and now he was backing off fast.

‘She’s a gorgeous girl and I’m looking forward to spending more time with her,’ he told a friend. ‘But she’s just getting over her split and she’s been through so much, so I’m not expecting anything serious to happen yet. I’m not really up for getting involved in anything too heavy at the moment. I’m not ready to be a dad.’

That row, ironically enough, had been about Katie’s totally OTT behaviour.

‘Anthony is really softly spoken and actually has a lot of mannerisms that would remind you of Pete,’ said a friend. ‘But Anthony and Katie fell out when he told her she was getting too lairy. He sees the good in everyone, but even he couldn’t handle her on Thursday night.’

Meanwhile, back in Cyprus, Pete’s family and friends were doing everything they could to protect him from what was going on, but there was only a certain amount of cover-up that they could manage, and, although Pete wouldn’t see the full reports about Katie’s behaviour in Ibiza, enough was getting through for him to be totally appalled.

‘It’s like a wild animal has been unleashed,’ he told friends. ‘I don’t recognise her as my wife. Has she no idea what this will be like for the kids? It was Katie who I fell in love with and married, but it looks like she just wanted all along to be her old self, Jordan. I can’t believe what I’m seeing – she’s like a caged animal that’s been let out.’

Among the people with Pete at the time was his friend Angelo, who became one of the first in his entourage to talk about what was going on. ‘Peter cannot believe what he’s witnessing,’ he said. ‘He is really, genuinely shocked. He’s been very upset, but this morning he simply said to me, “I’ve shed my last tear for her. Kate is right about one thing: there were three of us in our marriage – me, Kate and Jordan.” [a reference to an interview given by Katie the previous week].

‘Katie has shattered his world – I can’t keep quiet any more. I shouldn’t be saying anything, but I’m absolutely livid and someone has to speak up in Pete’s defence.’

In retrospect, the revelation of Katie’s behaviour in Ibiza might well have had a lot to do with Pete finally being able to move on. With each passing day, he understood more clearly that the woman he married had a very wild side to her, that ultimately she could never have been the one for him. At the time, however, it was devastating and everyone around him continued to try to protect him as best they could.

‘We dumped the papers in the bin to keep them from him because we knew it would break his heart,’ said Angelo. ‘But he found them and pulled them out. He couldn’t believe she was cavorting with male models, wearing sexy clothes and looking like she didn’t have a care in the world. Peter completely broke down.’

And it was certainly making him question the past. ‘It’s like my entire marriage has all been a sham,’ Pete told his family. ‘What is this going to be like for the children when they read how their mum behaves? Maybe she never really was Katie, maybe Jordan was the real her with Katie the pretend person, rather than the other way round. It feels like she’s been trying to force herself to live a life she didn’t want to live. Seeing all those pictures of her topless, then drunk and falling about, just makes me want to weep.’

At least his mother was there to help. ‘When Peter’s mum arrived, it sparked all the pent-up emotion from the past few weeks and he couldn’t stop crying,’ revealed Angelo. ‘It has killed me watching how sad Pete has been over the destruction of their marriage, but now he knows he has to move on.’

At least he still had the children to console him. A doting father and family man, Pete was delighted with the chance to spend time with the three of them, something that had been difficult since the separation.

‘I can’t even begin to tell you how happy it makes me,’ he said at one point. ‘Princess has become a total daddy’s girl and I had a really beautiful moment last week on the beach that I’ll honestly never forget. Harvey just put his arms round me and held me for what seemed like ages. Due to his condition, Harvey sometimes finds it hard to show his love, so that hug meant the world to me.’

Nor, at this stage at least, was he allowing himself to be drawn into a slanging match. ‘Of course I still love Kate: if you get over someone in five weeks, then you obviously didn’t love them in the first place,’ he said.

Katie herself was beginning to realise her behaviour wasn’t playing too well back home. She and Anthony hit the clubs once more, this time with Katie dressed in a very revealing gold lamé one-piece, but she was starting, very unusually, to sound a little subdued. There was, after all, a lot at stake: not just her career and her carefully revamped image as Katie, rather than Jordan, but also custody of the children to consider. This wasn’t looking good.

‘I’ve been acting like Jordan at her worst and Pete’s destroyed me by acting like the perfect dad,’ she glumly admitted. ‘I know how it could play in the divorce court.’

Then there was the commercial aspect to it all. While Katie had made her name as Jordan, it was Katie Price who became massively popular, and who had signed up to all those lucrative sponsorship deals since coming out of the jungle, where she’d met Pete, five years previously. There were real fears that her erratic behaviour might bring all that to an end.

‘Since coming out of the jungle in I’m A Celebrity, Katie has built a fantastically marketable career as Katie Price, mother of three children and a role model to young girls,’ commented a marketing expert. ‘In the space of five days, there is a perception she has seriously damaged that image. Katie has admitted she wants to go back to being Jordan and her behaviour since splitting from Pete has been wild, to say the least. She’s gone back to her pneumatic glamour-model roots, getting drunk and posing erotically.

‘From being a respected self-made entrepreneur, some people – young women and mothers, in particular – have turned against her. Some things being written and said are fairly vitriolic – and, of course, companies do not want to be associated with someone the public dislike. Crucially, they invested in Katie Price, not Jordan. While she will obviously continue with her own brand products, others are in serious jeopardy.’

What seemed to be upsetting Katie more than anything else was that Pete was getting all the sympathy, although he had actually been the one to leave. Indeed, she said as much on her Twitter site: ‘Pete being a true c**t to me. He left me, not me leave him. I want a drink. I want to get off my nut. Let’s go to the bar and get on with it.’

In its crudity, that message wasn’t going to win her many fans, however. Nor did her subsequent behaviour, when she described in graphic detail how she and Anthony had not actually consummated the relationship, before continuing, ‘If I say to Ant, “If I stay another night, will you sleep with me?” do you think he will? In fact, I think I will stay another night. Yes, that’s what I am going to do!’ she proclaimed, before chanting, ‘We are staying another night, we are staying another night in Ibiza!’

But her cohorts, a little anxious now about what was going on, were none too thrilled.

‘Don’t be stupid, Katie,’ said one. ‘We are going home. You need to get ready for the kids.’

‘OK, but I am still going to get drunk,’ announced Katie, before she and her group spent the rest of the evening running up and down the corridors, banging on people’s doors. It did not go down well with the other guests.

Finally, it was time to go home. The following day, the party arrived back at Gatwick, and the next day Katie set out for her usual riding lesson with her dressage instructor, Andrew Gould. Now back in the UK, it had been brought home to her quite how much damage the visit to Ibiza had caused her image: the children were still in Cyprus with Pete, and there had been a good deal of muttering in various quarters that they might be better off staying with him than returning to their errant mum.

Katie, as was her wont, was totally unrepentant. ‘I am a good mum,’ she said sharply. ‘I’ve had a great time and people can slate me all they like. I work hard, I’m a mum; I’m a young woman and I’m going through a split. I bet you loads of women would do exactly the same thing.’

And that, as far as the Ibiza jaunt was concerned, was that. Except that it wasn’t. Various elements continued to come to light, the first being that Anthony appeared to be seeing a new woman, Joanne Hunt, a dancer he met in the Eden nightclub in San Antonio.

‘Yeah, we had a thing together,’ said Joanne, who was based on the island. ‘Anthony’s a great guy. Of course I like him. I spoke to him yesterday and he told me nothing went on between him and Katie, and everything’s been blown out of proportion.’

This seemed highly likely. Despite the best efforts in some quarters to portray the rivalry between the two women as some sort of catfight, Katie herself had admitted that she and Anthony had never actually consummated their relationship, which had clearly been little more than a holiday fling. She had wanted to show Pete that she was perfectly capable of having a good time without him (which she did, albeit, perhaps, a little too enthusiastically). Anthony, meanwhile, had clearly enjoyed all the attention. Rather like with a very different woman some years previously, Princess Diana, the men who hung around Katie got to bathe in her reflected glory – although, as with Diana, it tended not to last.

What was perhaps more surprising, and not reported until some time afterwards, was that Katie actually did have a fling with someone she met in Ibiza, although this wasn’t to take off until she was back in the UK. In the wake of the break-up, her first real affair was with Andre Pinto, a 25-year-old Brazilian banker originally from Sao Paolo but resident in London for five years by the time they met.

By Pinto’s own account, Katie pretty much used him on the rebound, in the early days of her hurt and shock over the split with Pete, and he ended up feeling more than a little upset. ‘I was quite hurt and confused,’ he revealed in the wake of the short fling. ‘She used me for sex. She always said she didn’t want a proper relationship. She treated me as a sex toy when it suited her, then dumped me.’

Katie first met Pinto in the Ibiza nightclub Amnesia, wearing the tiny gold one-piece that was extremely revealing and kept the photographers focused on her throughout the rest of the night. It was she who spotted Pinto, and she who made the first move. To her delight, he had no idea who she was.

‘I didn’t know her,’ he admitted. ‘She turned to her friends and said, “He doesn’t have a clue – I love it.” She said, “I’m Jordan. I’m a model and I’m here having fun.” I thought she was really good-looking, with a nice smile and beautiful eyes. She was very small with big boobs. We started speaking and then we kissed. But her friends separated us, saying, “Don’t do it here because of the paparazzi.”’

Indeed, Katie spent the rest of her time in Ibiza partying without Pinto, but they did meet once they were both back in England, which is where the fling began. After a couple of dinners, the relationship was taken one step further at the home of Katie’s friend Gary Cockerill.

‘When we got there, we went straight to bed,’ revealed Pinto. ‘She took off her clothes and put knickers and a T-shirt on, and was waiting in bed for me. We started kissing and it went from there. She’s a very good kisser – one of the best I’ve had.’

Katie did not, however, want to rush things. ‘That night, she said we were not going to do anything because it was too early and she was not like that,’ Pinto continued. ‘She likes to show off, to play, to tease men, but she’s not the kind of girl to sleep around with everybody. Then she said it was too hard to resist having me beside her. We started kissing and just got into it. It was really hot sex, but we only had it in the dark.’

Pinto paid two visits to Katie’s home, the second being when Pete was looking after the children. Katie sent him a text: ‘You are hornyx. Just ridden two horses gonna go training then shopping. Pete has kids tonightx. What are you up to later? Hey you wanna stay tonight? Could a friend drop you to mine?’

He could. ‘We watched a movie together, then went to bed,’ Pinto said. ‘We didn’t really watch the movie. We just played together and had fun. I liked her tattoos. I think she has a heart tattooed somewhere private, but I couldn’t be sure because we always had sex in the dark. She liked to stare into my eyes while she did it.’

Katie was also quite open about the problems between herself and Pete. ‘Katie told me he didn’t really like going out,’ continued Pinto. ‘He wanted a wife to be inside the house, but she wanted to socialise. She said he always wanted to get her pregnant. She told me, “I love having a big family, but also wanted to have fun with my friends.”’

But, to all intents and purposes, that was the end of it. The duo didn’t see one another again, and shortly afterwards Pinto heard rumours that Katie had started to see cage fighter Alex Reid. ‘It was then I knew it was over,’ he said. ‘I was disappointed I could not see her any more. I was having fun because she is fun and interesting. I never met Alex Reid. I don’t want to meet him – I had a dream he beat me up and I’m scared of him.’

However, that was all still to come. Of course, the other man who was playing a big role in Katie’s life was Pete, also back in the UK, and it didn’t take long for matters to get even more bitter. The pair narrowly avoided bumping into one another at Nobu, the famous celebrity restaurant hangout in London. Then, one day, she brought Junior and Princess to Pete’s new Sussex home at 3.15pm one day, only to discover that he wasn’t there.

Pete was planning on taking the children out to celebrate Princess’s birthday, and was more than a little bemused to find Katie on his case: arriving back about 20 minutes later, he said, ‘It’s supposed to be 4pm, so why did you have to come so early?’ But he wasn’t calm all the time, writing in his New magazine column that when he saw what Katie had been getting up to in Ibiza: ‘I thought she was a disgrace.’

Meanwhile, she herself was backing away from it all. There had been rumours linking her with ex-boyfriend Matt Peacock, but she insisted that she had had a fling with neither Anthony nor Matt. ‘Jordan isn’t back!’ she said. ‘I’m Katie Price.’

Indeed, she was, but, as the world was now beginning to realise, Katie did seem to have an increasingly split personality, veering wildly from one extreme of behaviour to the next. Katie and Jordan were both in there, making various appearances as circumstances demanded. And, as for Pete – well, the marriage wasn’t merely over: all-out war had just begun.