If Price was really full of remorse, she’d be begging to be locked up
KATIE PRICE says she is remorseful about her drink-driving offence, but if that were true, surely she would be begging the authorities to lock her up?
Surely she would be admitting to anyone who would listen that she is a danger to the public; someone who cannot be trusted to behave responsibly despite police bans and cautions.
‘I need to be punished, put behind bars, please make an example of me,’ the truly Contrite Katie would cry, with a hand on her fluttering, righteous heart. But don’t hold your breath. The former glamour model crashed her car in September while under the influence of drink and drugs.
She was also driving while disqualified for the fifth time and — to sprinkle the croutons of disgrace on the soup of shame — she was not insured.
If that doesn’t scream serial offender with no sense of civic accountability, then what does?
Yet the judge in the Sussex court let Price off with a suspended sentence because the mother of five had booked herself into rehab — into the Priory no less, that Escape From Alcatraz for celebrities.
In addition, in a bid for sympathy, the shameless star has jumped on the mental health bandwagon.
‘Mental health is a hidden illness that can strike at any time,’ she piously wrote on social media.
Yes, it sure can. It can strike any old head-banger who goes on an all-night bender, then decides at 6am to drive off, fuelled by cocaine, to — it was claimed — buy more cocaine. For that is exactly what Katie Did in this unedifying adventure.
Now the 43-year-old fake tan devotee informs us that she did all this not because she was stupid and irresponsible, but because she has issues, the poor love. Quick, pass me the onion of empathy so I can wave it under my bone-dry eyes in a bid to look even a tiny bit compassionate.
For, increasingly, I find myself disgusted by those celebrities who use the carapace of mental health as a get-out-of-jail-free card to excuse their own bad behaviour or elicit undeserved sympathy.
Not only is it a cynical insult to those who really do struggle mentally every day, it also puts obstacles in the way of their getting the medical help they need.
The cynicism of stars such as Price is not just reprehensible, it is harmful to the vulnerable. And it doesn’t fool anyone.
Some years ago I interviewed Katie Price and she was about as mentally fragile as a freight train.
what was she plugging? I can’t even remember, for over time she has launched a blizzard of total tat on her fans; hairdryers, posters, mouse mats, pink plastic hair straighteners, pony bridles, tellall books, fitness DVDs, calendars, bikinis, perfume, the lot.
It was always, always all about the money with the Pricey. ‘It’s not like I’m getting any money for talking to you,’ she huffed, simmering away like an angry carrot, her orange forehead wrinkling with resentment as she snubbed the mildest inquiry.
Afterwards, so scalded by the dreadfulness of the experience, I vowed never to write about her again. Not if I could help it!
This was my own battle against her utter ghastliness, grasping avarice and the unremitting rudeness she displays in real life.
Hailed as a feminist by some, it seems clear that the only woman she cares about is herself.
Katie would do anything for an extra buck, from monetising her family and her dim cavalcade of increasingly useless husbands, to exploiting her long suffering fan base — once even trying to sell a pair of her pre-loved silicone breast implants on eBay.
O H, BUT she is so good with Harvey, cry her supporters. Yes, the care she lavishes on her handicapped son is notable, as witnessed in the recent BBC1 documentary Harvey And Me.
Yet her life seems to have descended into a kind of domestic bedlam; with various father figures shuffling in and out of her family orbit while there have been recent catastrophic financial problems which seem to be entirely of her own doing. In court this week her lawyer pleaded that her life had spiralled into debt and chaos, seemingly suggesting none of it was her own fault because she is not good at paperwork; one unpaid £7.50 road toll has escalated into a £1,400 fine.
Yet Katie always seems organised enough to make and keep her grooming appointments — the myriad manicures, tans, hair extensions and eyebrow shaping upkeep that are all part of her brand.
‘This is a lady with a lot of things going on,’ said her defence lawyer. But what mother of young children is not?
And what other member of the public would escape a custodial sentence in such circumstances? Serially reckless motorist Katie Price has proved over and over that she is a menace on the roads, someone who could easily destroy the lives of others as she seems to be hell-bent on destroying her own.
It seems ridiculous that a court would put her personal well-being before the safekeeping of the general public. No wonder Sussex Police are considering appealing her lenient suspended sentence.
After all, what kind of message does it send out? Especially at a time of year when police chiefs ramp up nationwide drink-driving campaigns and make promises that anyone getting behind the wheel after a festive drink or two faces the prospect of ending up behind bars.
Only not if you are Katie Price. Not if you check into the Priory. And not if you are ‘bad at paperwork’. I could say more, but I don’t want to upset her mental health.
I’m disgusted by celebs who use mental health to excuse their bad behaviour