Katie Price says Princess and Junior ‘didn’t have the mum they needed or wanted’ as she addresses their tearful recollection of being ‘neglected’ as children
Katie Price has admitted she ‘never knew’ how much her children suffered during her breakdown.
The former glamour model, 48, appeared on This Morning on Wednesday where she addressed Junior and Princess Andre‘s tearful recollection of their childhood on her new Sky documentary, Katie Price: Nothing to Hide.
Katie went off the rails following the collapse of her marriage to third husband Kieran Hayler, spiralling into depression and developing a cocaine addiction.
Junior, 21, and Princess, 19, who Katie shares with ex-husband Peter Andre, were just 13 and 10 at the time.
They explained how they began to start fending for themselves and their younger siblings Jett and Bunny, then four and three, with Katie returning home high on drugs after partying into the night.
Katie admitted it breaks her heart hearing their recollection as she had no idea what the children were going through. She thought she was trying to be the ‘perfect mum’.
She explained: ‘[It was] awful. They are amazing. And when they done the interview, they said: “Mum if we’re going to do this, we’re going to be brutally honest”.’
Katie Price admitted she ‘never knew’ how much her children suffered during her breakdown as she appeared on This Morning on Wednesday
Junior and Princess Andre broke down in tears as they reflected on their turbulent childhood for their mother’s new documentary Katie Price: Nothing To Hide
But Katie said after they filmed the scenes for the documentary, they came to her and confessed they had broken down in tears, leading her to ask: ‘Why?’
The television personality told Cat Deeley and Ben Shepherd: ‘[Because] I never knew [what they went through] because obviously I wanted to kill myself and I did try.
‘That period of my life, I don’t think people realise when I said I had a breakdown, I wanted to die, I didn’t want to be here.
‘And so as much as I thought I was being a mum, I wasn’t. I was vacant. For young kids like that wanting their mum. I was trying to be the perfect mum and obviously I wasn’t. It kills me I put them through that.’
She went on to add: ‘Obviously we’ve come through the other end and they’re like: “We’ve got our mum back” but what confused them is that I was such an amazing mum, had the breakdown, didn’t have the mum that they needed and wanted.
‘I wasn’t mentally there to be able to do it. And it kills me that I put them through that. The kids knowing I wasn’t right. I put all my family through it. It’s awful but it’s real life. It can happen to anyone.’
In Katie Price: Nothing to Hide, Junior shared how he tried to work out if food was microwavable to feed his siblings dinner and recalled the terrifying moment he realised his mother was high when she came home in the middle of the night.
He confessed: ‘That was probably the most difficult time of my life, our lives’, as Princess agreed: ‘I didn’t know what was going on and I couldn’t talk to mum about it because she wasn’t there.’
Katie addressed Junior and Princess Andre’s tearful recollection of their childhood on her new Sky documentary, Katie Price: Nothing to Hide
At the time Junior and Princess were just 13 and 10 respectively and began to start fending for themselves and their younger siblings Jett and Bunny, then four and three (pictured in 2017)
Junior continued: ‘And when she was there, she wasn’t there, and we as siblings just kind of looked after each other.
‘I remember me trying to figure out if food was microwavable to feed us for dinner.’
Recalling one painful memory, Princess shared: ‘She’d give me a blanket and spray her perfume on it and that was my attachment to her.
‘I used to go home and feel so lonely I would just cuddle the blanket and cry.’
Junior added: ‘I missed her so much.’
Thinking back to one vivid memory, he continued: ‘I was in her bed waiting for her to come back and I woke up 3.30am to loud noises.
‘She came in the room, I’ll never forget the look on her face. She was obviously on stuff and it scared me, I’d never seen my mum like this.
‘That’s when I started seeing the same pattern and her falling down the same hole. When she wasn’t in the right headspace she really wasn’t and she wasn’t being a mum.
‘The mum that I knew from when I was a little boy, the amount of love she gave me was so immense, that’s what I missed so much.
‘Mum was on drugs and she couldn’t look after us and that was the reality of it.
‘Then I got fed up and clocked this was a very unhealthy environment and I needed to get out.’
At the age of 14, Junior then left the family home to live with dad Peter, while Princess decided to stay, explaining: ‘I always wanted to be there for her but she didn’t understand that at the time because she was so hooked up in her own problems.’
Junior continued: ‘Thank god that my dad was stable because that’s the house that I went to and gained my sanity back while I was wishing and hoping that my mum would come back and turn herself around.
‘It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough because she wasn’t fixing herself for me, she wasn’t thinking herself for us – why?’
Things came to a head when Katie, who was battling suicidal thoughts, flipped her car while driving under the influence in the early hours of the morning in September 2021.
Discussing the chaotic few years in the lead up to the crash, Katie shared: ‘When I hear how the kids saw it, it breaks my heart.
Following the crash, Katie pleaded guilty to drink-driving, driving while disqualified and driving without insurance.
She was handed a 16-week suspended sentence and a two year driving ban, as well as a court mandated stay in rehab, where she received a diagnosis of ADHD.
‘I’m just relieved she’s still here,’ Junior mused. ‘I think trying to end your life must wake you up. She helped herself and she got off the drugs.
‘I feel a duty of care to her, she’s such a special gem, she’s my mum and I’ve only got one.
‘I feel like I’ve got my mum back. My mum knows she’s crazy but we love her for it and we’ll always be there for her.’
He added that his one hope for the future was that Katie would stop relying on the validation of men.
Junior explained: ‘I wish she finds more comfort within herself. I want her to start enjoying her own company more.’
Discussing his reaction to the news Katie married Lee Andrews in Dubai after days of knowing him, Junior sighed: ‘This is the most silliest, stupidest thing.
‘Marrying a guy you don’t even know, this just sums it up, this is my mum, this is what she does.’
Katie went off the rails following the breakdown of her marriage to third husband Kieran Hayler, as she developing a cocaine addiction (pictured in 2014 also with eldest son Harvey)
Also on This Morning, Katie spoke about her marriage to Lee Andrews and said he is making it look like a ‘gimmicky joke’ with his social media posts
Katie showed off her bronzed tan in a yellow ruffled two-piece as she posed for photos after being interviewed on the sofa
In the documentary, Katie had described her ideal man, saying they had to be older, able to treat her, someone who won’t leech on her and isn’t looking for fame.
During filming, it emerged that Katie had met and married her fourth husband – so-called businessman Lee.
Lee has been accused by multiple exes of conning them, most recently being accused of taking £5,000 from a ‘vulnerable woman’ in another alleged scam.
He has denied being involved in any cons.
Lee then set the internet alight after he seemingly disappeared into thin air, after Katie initially claimed he had been kidnapped. It then emerged Lee was being held at Dubai’s notorious Al-Awir prison.
Despite mounting evidence that fraud was the cause for his arrest, self-proclaimed ‘millionaire’ Lee insisted that he was imprisoned on suspicion of espionage ‘and held in a state security building’ before being taken to prison over ‘a civil case in Dubai’.
In an Instagram post, Lee continued to insist there is ‘not one shred of evidence’ that he has been charged with fraud, hitting out at his ex fiancée Alana for spreading the story.
He claimed he was ‘taken to the Qatar border by the men, at gunpoint and was captured by men with assault rifles’ before adding: ‘They did slap me round a little bit, little s***s.’
Speaking about their marriage on This Morning, Katie revealed her family will refuse to meet him should he ever come to the UK.
‘I said to Lee when he got out of prison, “don’t go on socials”. It’s not really fair on me now, you have just got to stay away from it because it’s become such a gimmicky joke now.’
‘My family want nothing to do with him because it’s become such a joke now.
‘I want them to meet him but they’re like “no”, but they are protecting me.
‘If you see my documentary you will see how many times men have let me down They are protecting me that they don’t want another one to use me or break me.
‘I have had therapy. I won’t let another man break me or use me.’
Lee is Katie’s fourth husband. She was first married to Peter for three years until 2009.
Nine months later she tied the knot again with cage fighter Alex Reid, who also appeared on the documentary and expressed his distaste at Katie publicly discussing their sex life in interviews.
They separated in January 2011 and exactly two years she wed Kieran Hayler, the father of her youngest children. They split in 2018 after he admitted to being unfaithful multiple times throughout their marriage.
