Katie Price: ‘I Was So Young When The Media And The Public Turned Against Me’

The glamour model and reality star is taking viewers back through 30 years of headlines and controversy in her revealing new documentary series.

Few figures in British culture, be they politician, TV personality or sports star, will spark as strong a reaction just from mentioning their name as Katie Price.

Throughout her time in the spotlight, she’s been scrutinised over her career choices, her appearance, her relationships, her parenting and her personal struggles, and been branded a shameless opportunist, a fame-hungry wannabe, a shrewd businesswoman, a good-time girl, an iconic hun, a doting mum, a bad influence and, indeed, a survivor, depending on who you ask.

Her latest venture has seen her following in the footsteps of A-listers like Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue and both Sir David and Victoria Beckham by bringing us right back to where it all started in the retrospective documentary Katie Price: Nowhere To Hide, a four-part series that takes us through her “rollercoaster” time in the spotlight, offering her side of the headlines that have dominated her life and career.

Early on in the doc, which is a collaboration with Louis Theroux’s production company Mindhouse, Katie explains that she was motivated to offer up her version of events as she feels she’s “always been misunderstood”.

“You all think you know about me,” she tells HuffPost UK weeks before her documentary’s TV debut. “And to a degree, you do. You’ve seen me do reality TV, and I’ve grown up in the public eye since I was 17. But there’s also a lot you don’t know about me.”

“I’m going to take you on a rollercoaster journey,” she teases. “And at the end of it, you will be mentally exhausted.”

“But just imagine, if you’re mentally exhausted, how do you think I feel?” she quips. “It’s my life!”

As one of the most iconic pop culture figures of the 21st century, Katie’s story is already very well-documented, between her past fly-on-the-wall reality shows, her whopping eight autobiographies, years’ worth of candid social media posts and, of course, the continuous stream of articles that have been written about her – both fact and fiction – over the last 30 years.

Katie claims that while people will have “seen headlines” and “judged me on them”, her new documentary allows her to put forward not just her version of events and lived experiences, but those of her family, loved ones and other figures from her life who contributed to the series and witnessed it all firsthand.

“When I decided to do the documentary, I literally said, ‘you can interview anyone you like from the past to the present – anybody – and you can ask me any questions you want, no matter how hard or tricky or in-depth it is’,” she recalls.

Clearly, producers took Katie at her word, with the list of subjects interviewed for Nowhere To Hide encompassing family members (including two of her grown-up children, Junior and Princess Andre), close celebrity friends (I’m A Celebrity co-star Kerry Katona and former bridesmaid Michelle Heaton are both featured), famous exes (Gareth Gates and Dane Bowers both lift the lid on their respective relationships with Katie, as does her second husband, Alex Reid) and even her cosmetic surgeons get the opportunity to say their piece.

“People they’ve interviewed, even I........

© HuffPost