Friday 3 July 2009

Katie pays the Price

Oh Katie. It was all going so well. You'd successfully managed the transition from zeppelin-chested trollop to horse-riding, child-rearing, book-authoring (cough), advice-giving everywoman. Suddenly you were championed as an inspirational celebrity mother by women who usually view Page 3 models with the kind of warmth and empathy that they usually reserve for people who drown kittens.

But you didn't know when to stop. Without any fear of being over-exposed (literally or figuratively) you charged into yet another series of fly-on-the-wall fakeumentaries, following your exploits in LA. But it didn't quite work out. It turns out that America already has its fair share of plucked, tucked, pinned and lifted talent vacuums. Turning up in your babydoll T-shirts and ridiculous Ugg boots, you were surprised to find that the birthplace of plastic surgery was a little more sophisticated than perhaps you'd given it credit for. To quote The Castle, the greatest little movie of all time, "The secret is to make them real, but not too real, just real enough to know that they're fake."

But you don't handle rejection particularly well, so you took it out on poor Peter Andre. OK, so he has about as much depth as a leatherette friendship bracelet, but he manages to stay remarkably upbeat, despite the fact that he couldn't sell a CD if he worked in HMV. Maybe you've lived your life in front of the cameras for so long that you forgot they were there. Either way, you chose to belittle Peter for the sake of entertainment, reminding him that everything he had was down to you. And he walked.

When Dwight Yorke dumped you before the birth of your son Harvey, you cleverly managed your reputation, distancing yourself from 'Jordan' and rebranding yourself as 'brave single parent' Katie Price. What a shame you didn't have your wits (or for that matter a decent management team) to help steer you through these troubled times. As a consequence, your fan-base appears to be dwindling as people suddenly find themselves warming to Peter Andre - in itself a concept as troubling as a plague of locusts or a rainstorm of blood.

Just like in any divorce, there's a point where the couple's friends have to decide who they're closest to. Making comments about Peter's 'shortcomings', calling him names via Twitter, and generally acting like an objectionable slattern have given people pause to think about who deserves their support the most. Should you decide to write another follow-up to your best-selling debut novel, you might want to consider 'Fallen Angel' as a title.

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