Love, Lipstick and Lies (25 page)

Lingerie is another of my passions. I’m obsessed with it – and can’t get enough of it! A few years ago I had a lingerie range with the label Panache, which was really successful, but when Pete left they dropped me. So I left it for a couple of years and then I brought out my own lingerie range – in bright, fun, flirty colours, of course. I actually did a photo call with Leo, thinking
that I would give him a chance to prove what he could do work-wise. He might have looked good lounging in bed but he still managed to irritate me! I had given him instructions not to do anything other than lie in bed because if he did anything provocative or silly, that would be the photograph the press ended up using. So what does he do? As I’m posing by the bed, he leans towards me looking as if he’s going to grab my arse! Like something out of a
Carry on
film! And that of course is the one the press used. I’ve had more professionalism from the many horses I’ve posed with.

If it glitters you know I’m going to love it, and in 2012 I launched my own line of costume jewellery with Love Lemonade. I chose glitzy crystal pieces that would be affordable for my fans, including necklaces and bracelets and crystal-encrusted lip-shaped clutch bags. To die for! I did a press call in London and it was all about white and glitz and glamour, so I was in a white leotard robe, thigh-high boots trimmed with marabou, a tiara, and a whole load of my crystal bangles on my arm. The
Daily Mail
said that I looked like a cross between a Vegas Showgirl and a bride. I take that as a compliment! Vegas Showgirls have amazing bodies!

Then in December I showcased KP Rocks at the Clothes Show in Birmingham, posing for press pictures and doing a signing. It went really well. Afterwards, as I walked round the show, I passed by Amy Childs’ stand. She happens to be represented by my ex-manager. And who should be sitting at the till but Claire Powell? It
had been three months since we filed high court papers against her and Pete for breach of confidence. She looked straight at me and I felt a moment of pure satisfaction when I saw how haggard she looked. I hoped that the impending court case was giving her some sleepless nights, as it had me. And I loved it when I saw that there were no queues at the stand, in contrast to mine which was buzzing. I didn’t say anything. There is no point in speaking to someone who clearly doesn’t care what they do to me.

It was only the second time I had seen Claire since Pete left. The first time had been in 2011, when I had taken Harvey to visit Pete for an hour. I had told the lawyers that I wouldn’t take him if Claire Powell was going to be present, but there she was in Pete’s kitchen, folding up his clean clothes. That was before I even knew about the situation with Jamelah, and it still stopped me in my tracks to see Claire standing in front of me, the woman I had blamed, and still blame, for the break-up of my marriage. It would have been easy then to tell her exactly what I thought of her and, God, it was tempting … but instead I killed her with kindness and made smalltalk.

Amy Childs also had a jewellery range at that time, which she was doing through a company I’ve always liked. They had asked me to do a range with them and I had gone to their London store and picked out all the pieces that I liked and even tweeted that we were going to collaborate. And then when Andrew, my manager,
discussed the deal with them, it became obvious that it wasn’t what it seemed. And I said, ‘Oh my God! Do they think we’re stupid! I would never do that deal with them, never, ever, ever!’ And when Amy signed up with them, I thought, I bet she’s getting paid practically nothing. It’s all very well bringing out products or endorsing them, but you have to earn money from them or what’s the point? It was the same with the sports label Lonsdale. I was going to do a deal with them, but the money and terms just weren’t good enough. Then Amy Childs signs up with them, and I know the money she got for it.

But on to happier thoughts – I’m also bringing out my own range of wedding dresses. I feel I’ve done my research on this as well! I’ve been married three times, and have had five weddings, if you count the wedding blessings I had first with Alex, then Kieran, so I have worn five dresses … probably four more wedding dresses than most people.

When I married Pete, my dress was made by the haute-couture designer Isabell Kristensen, the creator of many glamorous and dazzling red-carpet creations for celebrities. I had told her that I wanted to look like a princess for my wedding day, and it had to be a fairy-tale dress: big, sparkling and pink! And, boy, I got it! Every time I had a fitting for the dress, I can remember saying that I wanted it bigger, with even more sparkle. It turned out to be a show-stopper, encrusted with thousands of Swarovski crystals – apparently it took twelve people over three weeks to hand stitch them all on. It was three
metres wide with a seven-metre-long train. Because the bodice was entirely made of rose-pink crystals it was very heavy to wear. I can remember feeling exhausted by the end of the night. It was also staggeringly expensive; I reckon I could probably have bought a house for what it cost me. Now I look back and think that was an insane amount of money to spend on a dress I only wore once.

When I married Alex in Vegas, I bought my wedding dress off the peg from a wedding boutique, a couple of hours before tying the knot. Talk about last-minute – I didn’t even have time to try it on first! I loved it on sight, and buying it in such a rush seemed to fit in with the spontaneous, romantic feeling of that Vegas wedding. I wouldn’t recommend it, though; taking your time choosing your perfect dress is one of the lovely things about planning a wedding.

I’m bringing out three dresses to start with and I’m calling it the Royale Collection. I came up with the concept and the names and styles of the dresses. There will be the Queen Dress, which is modelled on the one I wore when I married Kieran, with a striking feather-trimmed bodice; the Princess, a gorgeous full-skirted style; and the Duchess, a fitted dress with a skirt trimmed with feathers.

I’m having the launch later this year. I mentioned my plans to bring out the wedding dresses on Twitter, just after I married Kieran, and had a great response. Of course I’ve been busy dreaming up ideas for the launch, to make the photo-shoot as eye-catching as possible.
The dresses will be sold initially through the wedding boutique at Rookery Manor, Somerset, and then we’ll go out to the bridal exhibitions.

But that’s not all! Before my bridal range launches, I’m bringing out a range of crystal-encrusted shoes, corsets and handbags. And no doubt by the time this book is published in October 2013, I’ll have dreamed up even more ideas for Katie Price products.

Even after my two failed marriages and the break-up with Leo, I still believed in love, still believed that there was a perfect man out there for me. I wanted a soulmate, someone who loved me as much as I loved them. I wanted a man to get down on one knee and propose before sweeping me off my feet. I’m the all or nothing sort.

By this stage I knew myself well enough to realise that the single life was not for me. I hated not having someone in my life to love and to love me. I wanted to meet someone I could commit to, heart, body and mind. I wanted that loving family unit. And I wanted to have more children. But I had learned some harsh lessons through my relationships with Alex and Leo, when they had moved in with me and I had started out wanting
to be with them all the time. That doesn’t work if the relationship is one-sided. To be my ideal match the man has to have his own career, his own interests. Also, my friends have told me that whenever I meet a guy, I want to buy them things, and treat them, and set up this chain of expectation that I will always do that – and that’s when they end up taking advantage. So the next one had to be different …
Please God
, he had to be different!

My friend Phil texted me in October 2012:
Kate, there’s a guy I know who really wants your number. Is it okay for me to give it to him? He’s called Kieran and he’s a really nice guy, I’ve known him three years. He’s been asking me for the last year, he’s driving me mad! What d’you reckon?
He went on to tell me that Kieran had worked as a topless waiter, and was a plasterer and part-time stripper, so at least he worked!

I reckoned, why not? I wasn’t seeing anyone, though I was having a bit of flirtatious banter with a couple of guys. To be honest, I don’t know how anyone can be a major player. It’s such hard work keeping on top of it all when you have these guys constantly texting you and have to remember what you said and to whom! I asked Phil if Kieran had BBM, because the good thing about that is that you can give someone your BBM PIN and they won’t have your phone number so if you decide you’ve had enough of them, you can just delete them. It turned out he did. But before I was willing to hand over my PIN, I had to check what Kieran looked like so I asked Phil to send me a picture. Good-looking as
he was, I just thought, Oh, yet another muscular, fit guy. Gary and Phil know loads of guys with that look. I thought, I don’t want another one; I’ve just got rid of one like that! As I knew only too well from my experience with Leo, looks weren’t everything … But because Phil said that Kieran was such a nice guy, I thought, Well, I’m not with anyone, it’s just BBM, it will only be a bit of banter, I may as well give him my PIN.

So Kieran started messaging me and I thought, Yeah, he seems nice. And he was so full on! Constantly sending me messages. The thing about BBM is that you know when the message has been delivered and you know when it’s been read, so sometimes I would read his message and not reply and he would instantly message me again, saying,
I know you’ve read my message, so why aren’t you replying?

Bloody hell! He doesn’t stop! I thought, but I liked the attention. He kept asking when he could meet me, saying that he really wanted to see me, and how much he had always liked me. And I suppose I was playing a bit hard to get so I’d reply that I was busy at the moment. But that didn’t deter him, he would reply with,
Well, when
can
I see you then?

Jesus Christ! You don’t stop, do you! I’m busy, I’m not sure when I’m free
, I’d reply. But he was so persistent and every day he would be on my case.

I’d call Kieran The Stripper to my friends, and say, ‘That stripper guy doesn’t stop!’ And it got to the point where I thought, OMG, I’m going to delete him from
my BBM contacts. This is too much. I’m enjoying the flirtation, but this is too full on – and that’s saying something coming from me … Also, he hasn’t even met me! He might not like me if he did.

And so I deleted him. Straight away he rang me up (I guess he must have got my number from Phil) and said, ‘Have you just deleted me?’

Shit! He’d caught me red-handed. I pretended that I hadn’t, being a big softie at heart and not wanting to upset him. And as we spoke on the phone I thought, Actually, you’re all right. You’ve got a sense of humour like me, which I’d never expected. I really liked the way he sounded.

So when he asked again if we could meet, I thought, Why not? I’ve got nothing to lose by it. We spoke on the phone and I questioned him about what he did, where he lived and what he liked doing, just to see if there was any connection there. And I felt there was definitely something. We could banter; I liked his dry humour. It reminded me of the TV programme
Snog, Marry, Avoid
, where if I had only seen a photograph of him I would have thought he was so into himself and vain. And people probably look at me and think, She’s so fake, she’s got no personality, she’s thick and easy. But when we talked it was different, there was a connection.

It’s funny looking back and seeing how blasé I was about meeting Kieran, when he was going to be the man who was finally going to sweep me off my feet … the man I had always dreamed of. I decided to ask him over
that night as I had friends staying and they could vet him for me. I didn’t have Princess and Junior with me, so that wasn’t an issue, and Harvey would be in bed. I decided I wasn’t even going to make much of an effort. I never really do at home so I decided to wear trackies and hardly had any make up. If he was expecting to get the glammed up, boobs out Katie Price he could dream on. He was going to get the natural-looking Katie Price. I was just going to see how it went, no pressure.

But as I was getting ready, and the time was getting closer to him arriving, I realised that I was looking forward to meeting him. We had got on well when we spoke on the phone and I was half excited, half nervous.

When he arrived, I made sure that I was upstairs and my friends Mikey and Ross let him in. I texted Mikey to ask him what Kieran was like. I already knew that he was twenty-five and over six foot tall.

Does he smell good?
I asked.
And what’s he wearing?

They completely wound me up by saying that he was in a pink onesie. Cheeky bastards! Surely they weren’t serious? For a moment I actually believed them, and thought, oh, no! He must be a knob! But then Mikey came up to my room and admitted that they were taking the piss, that Kieran was really nice, that he looked good and smelled great.
And
that the poor guy was really nervous. I thought, I’m so cruel, making him wait!

So I went downstairs and met him. I was really surprised when I saw him as I thought, OMG! You really are good-looking – and you’re really fit! He was
muscular and thick-set. I absolutely love that look. Leo had been muscular but wiry … not so good. Kieran was chunky and ripped. He had a perfect body, from what I could tell. And I loved the fact that he was so tall. Pete had been a bit lacking in that department. Whenever we went out and I was in heels, Pete would put tissues in his shoes to make himself look taller than me, otherwise we would have been the same height. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist putting that in!)

Kieran dressed exactly how I like men to dress, really bang on trend with that boy-band look. And he smelled delicious, I’ve always been into fragrance. Actually he was way better looking than I’d imagined he’d be. Head to toe fit in every way.