Love, Lipstick and Lies (10 page)

The following day we escaped to the beach again for our last day in Argentina and I asked our Spanish-speaking cameraman to tell Leo that I’d fallen deeply for him. I thought he was the perfect package. I hadn’t felt this happy for a long time. Because of what happened later when we split, looking back I wonder if the way Leo treated me then was all part of a plan to reel me in, that he didn’t ever love me but only wanted a famous partner … I really hope not.

Then it was back to the UK together. Friends asked how on earth we could have a relationship when we didn’t even speak the same language, but somehow we managed to communicate. In fact, if there was a translator then it became a problem – we liked working
things out for ourselves. And on the plus side it meant that we could never argue! Oh, yes, he did try and teach me the odd word or phrase in Spanish:
Hola, gracias
, ¿
Cómo está
? Most important of all,
Te quiero
: I love you. Did I love him already? I think it was more like lust, which I have to say can feel like love. Our relationship seemed so romantic and fairy-tale-like, probably even more so because of what had gone before it … which, believe me, had never been like a fairy tale. More like a horror story towards the end.

I wanted to throw a party for Leo when we were back. He had been so generous to me when I was out in Argentina and I wanted to show him some hospitality Pricey-style. A barbecue seemed like a perfect idea. There was just one problem … my barbecue had completely rusted as I had left it out on the patio throughout the winter. There was no way
that
was ever going to grill a sausage again. Pete had taken my other barbecue when we split.

I had to have one! From what I could gather, barbecuing food was an important tradition in Argentina as they seemed to be big meat eaters. Leo had a huge built-in grill on his terrace, where he could cook whole sides of beef. He was quite a man’s man and really into building things and DIY. If you needed something fixing he would do it. The complete opposite to Pete who never did anything like that when we were together. Anyway Leo got it into his head that he was going to build me a barbecue outside from scratch and we spent quite a while in B&Q trying to track down what he needed.
Oh, the glamour of my life! In the end, after a tortuous twenty minutes, we ended up buying two barbecues in kit form, which had been my suggestion all along.

I’m not sure if I was quite so good a host as Leo. By now my friends are used to my style of entertaining, where it’s all a bit last-minute, but I get there in the end and there is always plenty of food. Too much of it sometimes. I love to feed my friends until they’re so stuffed they’re only fit for collapsing in the cinema room and watching a movie and us all chilling out together. I love a full house. Leo expertly put together the barbecues and very sweetly involved Harvey in their construction. And even though the party was meant to be for him, Leo ended up grilling all the food. I got the impression that he would rather do that … especially when he saw the state of my mashed potato. Usually it’s the business. This time it was both runny and lumpy. But, hey, I have many other good qualities.

As well as being a model, author and businesswoman, I also have a TV career. I have made three documentaries about my life with the filmmaker Richard Macer, and then in 2004 came the first series of the long-running reality show that I made with Pete. After we split I had my own series,
What Katie Did Next
, and filmed a three-part special on my wedding to Alex Reid,
Katie and Alex: For Better, For Worse.

After my first marriage broke up and I still wanted to make reality shows, I formed my own production company, Pricey Media. My reality shows had all been made for ITV2 and I’d always enjoyed a very good relationship with everyone at the channel. The production company for these shows was Can TV, which was run by Neville Hendricks, partner (business, and for
a while personal) of Claire Powell, who ran my former management company. He had been instrumental in creating the ‘reality-show’ style, and was continuing to make shows with Pete. But in March 2010 I was offered a deal with Sky Living TV to make two series of my show for them, as well as some factual entertainment series. The offer was too good to turn down, we are talking megabucks, and I signed up with Sky. But then the executives I had made the deal with left the channel, and the people who took over didn’t seem so interested in promoting my shows.

Once I was making my own reality series, I had some decisions to make. First of all I decided that I no longer wanted my children to be filmed for the show or to appear in any of my photo shoots. I wanted to withdraw them from the public eye and allow them to have as normal a childhood as possible. The series I had filmed with Pete had always included a lot of footage of us with our children, even the moments up to Junior’s and Princess’s births, but after we broke up I realised that wasn’t appropriate any more. There was some pressure on me for them to be included, but they were at an age by then when they were becoming aware of the cameras and what they meant. They had enough to cope with as their parents had recently split up. I wanted to protect them and give them some time to grow up like normal kids. I think I also wanted to prove that I don’t need to have my children in my reality show or in shoots to promote myself.

I took advice on whether or not I should have Harvey in my series, from his teachers and from other parents of disabled children. Harvey’s not aware of being filmed but that does not make it right in itself. What I do feel is that he is an inspiration, and the experts and my family agreed that it was good to keep him in my series, as it helped raise awareness about bringing up kids with disabilities and hopefully inspired other families. I know from the response that I received from viewers of the show that they really appreciated this. I think we have to include the disabled more in the everyday life of our country. As we saw from the Paralympics, those who cope with disabilities are inspirational, talented, and have huge amounts to offer. As a society we are perhaps a little reluctant to realise that, until important events like the Paralympics demonstrate it to us. I did, however, make sure Harvey was not in the show all the time.

I asked Pete to do the same, and keep Princess and Junior out of his series and shoots, but he refused. His argument seemed to be that it had never bothered me when we were married so why should it now? And that the kids loved doing it. (Of course they did, they’re kids!)

It was true that when I was married to him, and we were managed by Claire Powell, I felt as if we were in this bubble where our whole lives were about being filmed and photographed. It became normal to us. We were in
OK!
, week in and week out,
and no one was saying that this was wrong. But it all became too much for me. When my marriage broke up and the bubble burst, I had a reality check. That was not how I was going to live my life any more, and I was disappointed when Pete carried on involving the kids in his series and shoots. He didn’t seem to understand my reasoning, and some people in the media claimed I was only doing it to have a go at him. They claimed my position was hypocritical, and that it was a pointless stance given that Pete would continue to have them in his show anyway. But I knew I was right, and when the kids are with me there are no photo shoots, and there’s no filming. They can just enjoy being with me, their mum. If that makes me a hypocrite then fine, but I actually think it would be more wrong of me to have realised that the kids should not be exposed as much as they were being and then do nothing about it. I am nothing if not a trier!

Pete has continued to do numerous photo shoots with Junior and Princess for
OK!
, and I would love to know if he has put the money he’s earned in trust for them. As far as I’m concerned, they are entitled to it. I actually wrote on Twitter that my kids must have a big bank balance now because of all the work they had done with their dad. To be honest, I am disappointed that he has continued to do all those shoots with them, but he is still with the same management and still in the same ‘bubble’. When he walked out on me the press were convinced that he was the victim, that he was the perfect father and I was a bitch and a bad mother.
I have no idea what he thinks about this but he has never, to my knowledge, said anything to the press to contradict this impression. There was even a shoot of him going strawberry picking with the kids.
Seriously?
He never did anything like that with them when we were together. He was always far more interested in working on his music. The one good thing to have come out of our marriage breaking up is that he does far more things with the kids nowadays. But I wish less of it was filmed or photographed, and I think one day he will see that what I am trying to do in removing them from the public eye is the right thing to do.

I don’t watch his reality series but friends tell me how much of it involves the children and I don’t like that at all. When they were very little it didn’t seem to be such an issue, but as they are getting older of course they are aware of being filmed and it has an effect on them. It’s got to the point where Junior says, ‘I’m famous!’ And I have to gently say, ‘No, you’re not, it’s your mummy and daddy who work in the media.’ Or I hear him say to people, ‘My dad’s Peter Andre!’ and that worries me. If you look at the kids of some Hollywood actors, they are often in trouble because they’ve lived off the back of their parents’ fame and haven’t achieved anything for themselves. I don’t want my fame to affect my children’s lives. I want them to be treated just like any other kids, and I don’t want their friends to be friends with them just because of who their parents are.

I hate thinking that when they go to Pete’s house they
will be filmed. It should just be about them spending time with their dad, doing normal things. But it seems I’m not going to get my way about this and I am worried about the possible effect on them.

* * *

The other big decision I made was that I didn’t want the men in my life to feature in my series. After filming with Pete and then Alex, I wanted my relationships to remain private. However, this didn’t quite go to plan … I had just begun filming my new series,
Katie
, when I met Leo. And in spite of my recent resolution, he ended up being in the series because that was the only way I could get to see him, otherwise he would have been in Argentina and I would have remained in the UK filming. Maybe having him in the series gave him the false expectation that his life would always be like this, I don’t know. But that’s exactly why I
really
am never going to do it again!

I know I’ve complained in the past about filming taking over my life, but that was when I was with Pete and then it really was too full on. I came to dread hearing the doorbell ring, knowing that it would be the film crew. The experience of filming was so much better when it was with my own production company, Pricey Media, because I felt I had more control. Though I have to say, filming the second series was pretty full on as it lasted over seven or so months. The director seemed to like including interviews with my family, and they loved it when my mum or brother criticised me and
said they were going to have a go at me for something. For example, they included a scene with my mum commenting on the way I dress, saying that she had always had a battle with me about the way I looked. And how she would like me to wear a sensible outfit on a night out, instead of showing off my boobs and backside!

‘You’re thirty-three!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you trying to prove!’

‘Am I supposed to go out dressed like a nun?’ I retorted, getting the last word in as usual.

I guess the director wanted the extra drama – as if there wasn’t enough in my life! You know that with the Pricey something surprising is always going to happen …

Also, they kept saying that they wanted to see the real Katie, reveal a softer side to me.

Well, I had to put them straight there. ‘You’re not going to see me crying on TV unless I’m genuinely upset about something! I can’t turn it on and off like that.’ It was as if they constantly wanted to wring more emotion out of me, to drum up more sympathy. But I thought that could turn out to be a depressing show and that was the last thing I wanted to make! And, as I’ve said so many times before, I can only be myself. I don’t put on an act for the cameras. The series was supposed to be capturing the reality of my life, warts and all. And I think that’s exactly what viewers got.

You may be surprised to hear me say this, given how successful my reality shows have been, and how many
of them I have made, but I have to say I think reality TV has had its day. There are just too many shows out there now, and I think the public sees them as a bit fake and staged. But I was one of the first to get in there and my show was never scripted. What you saw was
my
reality. Once my series was on Sky its viewing figures were often compared with Pete’s on ITV2, and this seemed to be yet another way of putting me down because mine were lower. But what people didn’t seem to realise when they made this comparison was that ITV2 is a free channel, which everyone can get, whereas Sky is pay TV and not everyone has that, so of course my viewing figures would be lower. As I write this, I’m thinking about putting together a series to air on
YouTube
. I reckon that’s the way forward.

In 2011 I also filmed a documentary for Sky Living called
Standing Up For Harvey
in the wake of Frankie Boyle’s outrageous and sick so-called joke about him, which I will write more about later in this book. It was about speaking out for my son, who can’t defend himself, as well as for other people with disabilities, hearing their stories and experiences. I wanted to confront the prejudice that Boyle’s comment revealed, and to show what bringing up a disabled child is really like.

The fact that Boyle could make such an insensitive comment showed that he didn’t have a clue what life was like for disabled children and those who care for them. My production team invited him to take part in a discussion on the programme, so he could explain why
he made that ‘joke’ and why he thinks it is acceptable to speak about a disabled child in that way. And I wanted an apology. But guess what? We received a point blank refusal. Which I think says everything you need to know about him.