Katie Price’s mother reveals what she was really like before she was famous
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday world, Amy Price, who has now written a bestselling autobiography called The Last Word, believes Katie suffers from body dysmorphic disorder. She has had 16 breast surgeries.
“I talked to her about it when I was writing the book and she said, ‘Yeah, Mom, you’re probably right.’ But it’s my body and I can do whatever I want with it,” says Amy, who is also recovering from surgery after a life-saving lung transplant.
Katie Price with her family
Amy believes that people should be content with their appearance, which makes them individual, rather than obsessing over perfection. “I think with Botox and fillers, everyone looks the same to me now… with the lips. I think it looks more than just beautiful.
“I say to Kate, ‘Why are you doing this to yourself, I don’t think it’s worth it?’ I’m worried that people will get addicted to it, and that’s dangerous. People don’t realize that anesthesia alone is dangerous.
“They should think about why they let it be done. People believe what they see on social media and with airbrushing it’s so unrealistic.”
When Amy looks back on her daughter’s childhood, she remembers that even back then, Katie had problems with her appearance.
“She was so small that she thought her legs were like pins, so she wore three pairs of leggings at a time to make her legs a little bigger. Now that you think about it, after all the surgeries she’s had, maybe it even went back that much because she was self-conscious about her body back then.
“Otherwise she was completely normal [as a child]. You wouldn’t believe it now, but she was very shy. To be honest, she didn’t really say much. She loved her horses. She wasn’t interested in boys until she was 15 or 16…and then the problems with boys started. She was pretty relaxed up until then.”
Amy remembers that Katie always aspired to be a celebrity. “Kate always wanted to be famous,” she says. “She always said to me: ‘I don’t need a GCSE (the equivalent of our Junior Certificate) because I’m going to be famous anyway.’ She knew what she wanted to do from a young age.”
Amy Price’s new book is out now
Has fame affected you? “I think it would affect everyone,” Amy replies. “The downside is the bad publicity it gets. But if you said to Kate, “Would you do it all again?” She says, “Yes!” To us, she’s still down to earth. She likes normal things like going to the garden center.”
As a mother, Amy admits it has been difficult watching how Katie has been portrayed in the media over the decades.
“The worst thing you could read about in the past was that she was a bad mother, even though she wasn’t,” she says. “She is a fantastic mother. Also that she was a drug addict, which she isn’t. I found things like that really quite hurtful.
“We know what Kate is like and she has a lot of mental health issues and I thought it was unfair the way she was portrayed.
“That was the trigger for me to want to explain in the book why she does what she does. From our perspective, as a family we couldn’t understand it and now we know she has ADHD. That explains why she thinks differently than we do. She sees things differently and can be quite impulsive. She has no filter and now we understand that and she understands it too…it just makes her keep her mouth shut.
“I would like to think that some people will change their opinion of her after reading the book.”
A point of contention between mother and daughter is the series of male partners to whom Katie has been tied throughout her life.
Amy tells me: “Now it’s gotten to the point where we don’t talk about the men in her life anymore because it’s so boring. They all look like clones of each other. We say to her, “When are you going to stop looking for good-looking, young, handsome boys and choose a decent man?” We say that and always get in trouble for it. But that’s how we all feel now.
“In some ways it’s better for her to just be single and have someone take her out every now and then or whatever. We’re just fed up with the men who were in her life. She has to grow up. She’s getting older, she needs an older man. As to whether that will ever happen, I won’t hold my breath.
“But at the moment she is doing well, she has good friends around her. She now knows who the good friends are.”
So what’s it like being Katie Price’s mother? “It’s very hard work,” Amy adds with a laugh.
“It’s like having a naughty puppy around all the time. But she is also kind and generous.
“She comes to me, puts the kettle on and makes a cup of tea. And now, after all this time, I realized how I can be with her as a mother.”