What Price Fame?

So, was it all just a sham? Or has five years conducting their relationship under the scorching rays of the media spotlight finally taken its toll? Yes, I’m talking about the recent announcement that Katie Price, AKA page three stunna Jordan, is finally calling time on her marriage to Peter Andre – he of the waxed chest, washboard abs and questionable musical ability.

In the post-match analysis, no doubt every man and his dog will be speculating as to the real reason behind the perma-tanned pair’s parting of ways. But regardless of the conclusion you come to, one fact is undeniable – they understood how to work the media like no other celebrity couple out there. Forget Posh & Becks and their tasteful (read cringeworthy) fashion shoots and increasingly desperate attempts to get us to take them seriously, Katie and Peter courted the media unashamedly from Day One – and they got it down to a fine art. What’s more, their warts-and- all, comi-tragic approach to celebrity has made them an outrageous amount of money in a very short space of time.

Which is why their request that the media “respect their families’ privacy at this difficult time” is a little hard to swallow. Surely the Price family’s privacy was irreparably compromised the moment they chose to invite an entire tv crew into their home to document their every cross word and happy moment? For a couple whose fortune has been amassed almost entirely through selling the mundane minutiae of their private lives to an eager public – be it through the pages of Hello or via their eponymous tv series – they are being uncharacteristically tight-lipped.

Katie, Peter, a word to the wise: don’t bite the hand that feeds you. You owe your very existence to the media machine and the fans that have followed your every move since that first fumble in the jungle – so be careful what you wish for. It might just come true.