Katie Price has only been in the room for a matter of seconds, and already she’s getting something off her chest.
Pulling down her top to display the results of her boob reduction – which saw her go from a 32FF to a 32B last December – she proudly declares she has no regrets about going under the knife for the umpteenth time.
“No bloody big boobs in the way all the time,” she laughs. “Clothes fit better. I’m really happy about it.”
Honest, upfront, unapologetic and straight-talking – so far, so Katie. In typical fashion, she’s already taken the initiative when a mix-up with her cab left her with no transport to our studio. Without complaint, she simply jumped on a train and hotfooted it solo from West Sussex to south London.
But there are other aspects to her which are not so typical. There’s a calmness to Katie that didn’t exist a decade ago.
At 37, she is no longer brash, car-crash glamour girl Jordan, whose jaw-dropping antics, marriages and divorces to and from Peter Andre, 42, and Alex Reid, 40, kept her on the front pages of the tabloid press.
She no longer speaks to Pete, despite the fact they share the parenting of their children Junior, 10, and eight-year-old Princess, but wishes him well in his marriage to new wife Emily MacDonagh, 26.
“We’ve both moved on, but we’re like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – everyone is obsessed with our exes. That is in the past for both of us now.”
Pete is one of the stars of the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing, a show Katie has made no secret about desperately wanting to appear on herself.
“I’ve always wanted to do it,” she says. “I nearly did the Australian version, but it was difficult to leave the children that long. I think Peter will be brilliant because he’s a great dancer and he’ll want everyone to see that. I‘d tell anyone to put a bet on him because I think he’s going to win it.”
So will she be cheering him on to triumph? She pulls a face.
“I’m not going to be sitting next to Kieran on the sofa watching Pete. So no, I’m not going to be watching.”
As a mother of five, multimillionaire businesswoman, wife (to former stripper Kieran Hayler, 28 – “this time it’s going to be forever”) and passionate advocate for kids with disabilities – including Harvey, her 13-year-old son by footballer Dwight Yorke – Katie has never been happier.
But when we tell her that she seems more gentle, more soft than a few years ago, she shakes her head: “I just didn’t show it back then. When you get to know me, you see I’m not who you think I am.
“Most people think I lounge around all day drinking champagne and having my hair and make-up done. Maybe it was like that once, but the reality couldn’t be any different.”
In fact, Katie’s day starts at 6am with Harvey standing next to her bed asking for a cuddle, and from then on, it’s non-stop.
“Me and Kieran are up, getting breakfast for Harvey, Princess and Junior and sorting out lunches. Harvey gets taken to his special school and either me or Kieran takes Princess and Junior to school. Jett and Bunny [her two-year-old son and 15-month-old daughter with Kieran] sleep till 10.30am, then they have their breakfast. We have a lady who comes in for a few hours a day, Monday to Friday, because we’re doing up our house.”
Katie bought her three-storey £1.3million West Sussex mansion from Tory Minister Francis Maude a year ago, and immediately started renovating with glittered wallpaper and sparkly tiles (did you expect anything else?).
“I’ve even made all the curtains and pelmets myself. I’ve had years spending a fortune on interior decorators and realised I actually love doing this stuff myself, and I get exactly what I want,” she says.
The day-to-day life she describes with Kieran is distinctly unglamorous and one of chaotic domesticity.
“We are literally like the couple from The Good Life. I don’t ever wear make-up at home. I’m usually in jeans or jogging bottoms and wellies, because if we’re not doing the painting and decorating, we’re out with the animals. I call Kieran Farmer Giles or Doctor Dolittle. He’s got his pigs, goats, sheep and chickens.
“He’s gone from a six-pack to a one-pack wearing clothes that are covered in muck or paint most of the time. But we have a laugh, we’re a team and I’ve never felt like this before. I’m happy.”
Married life has not exactly been a bed of roses, though. It’s been well-documented that Katie discovered Kieran cheated on her with her two best friends, Jane Pountney, 50, and Chrissy Thomas, 42, while she was pregnant with Jett.
It was Katie herself who unashamedly exposed the affair to the world, forcing Kieran to take a lie detector test and posting a string of furious tweets detailing the betrayal.
“I say exactly what I think,” she says defiantly. “I’m not going to apologise for that.
“Other people think Kieran is a cheat and a liar, but I don’t care what they think. I’m the harshest judge and I know how much he has changed. In the past two years he’s gone from a boy to a man. I trust him 100 per cent.
“He’s not vain – he hardly looks at himself in the mirror. He’s even got a little pot belly, which I actually like a lot. His whole life revolves around me and the kids. We never row, we have a laugh, and he’s the one man who makes me totally happy.
“When he cheated on me, everyone told me to get rid of him. It would have been easy to do. But there was something in me that knew I shouldn’t give up on him, and I’ve learnt a lesson about myself because I’ve never before been good about second chances.
“What I’d say to any other woman who goes through what I went through is if you think there is something worth fighting for, fight for it. Don’t throw it away.
“Despite all the pain and all the horribleness that was going on when I found out he’d cheated, I knew in my gut he was still the right man. And he’s a better man for having gone through therapy and all that. I love him to bits and so do my kids.”
You have to admire Katie’s ability to deal with everything life has thrown at her. She seems invincible.
And she’s the perfect choice of presenter for a new series on ITV’s This Morning about caring for children with disabilities. Starting tomorrow, it will feature Katie talking about her life with Harvey and interviewing other mothers of physically and mentally handicapped children.
Harvey’s problems are multiple, ranging from autism to ADHD to Prader-Willi syndrome and septo-optic dysplasia, which affects his eyesight.
“When Harvey was born, I was told he couldn’t see properly – everything else that was wrong with him was something we discovered gradually. And what do you do? You just deal with it.
“Harvey can be a total little sod, but he rules the house. I love him to pieces and I wouldn’t change a single thing about him. He always tells the truth and he’s so completely soft. I sometimes worry that he’s too soft and I get Junior to teach him some judo moves, but Harvey just giggles.
“He’s incredibly challenging, but he’s the most loving and lovable kid. Jett adores him. I have to watch him in case he hugs Jett too hard, but all my kids love Harvey. Princess loves to tell tales on him when he nicks all my chips at the table, but Harvey has never had a bad thought in his life.
“He’s going to be with me forever, and I’m glad about that because I’d never want to leave him. When I was filming for This Morning and I spoke to the other mums who have kids with a whole range of problems, we all looked at each other and said: ‘How do you cope?’ But you do because you have to and because you love them and because you have to deal with it.”
Katie’s definitely not the type to sit and dwell on life’s hardships or feel sorry for herself.
“You can’t sit and cry, because that’s never going to resolve anything. And if anything, I have more laughs with Harvey than anyone else because he can be completely hilarious. It’s all about extremes.”
She could never be described as a conventional mum. After all, she has five children by three different dads, and says she would be supportive of Princess if she ever wanted to become a glamour model: “I would support her because I couldn’t be a hypocrite about it.
“I’d tell her not to have any surgery before she was 21, though. I was 18 when I had my boobs done and that was way too young.”
But there’s no doubt that Katie absolutely adores her children and would do anything for them. Part of the reason she agreed to appear in the Sleeping Beauty panto this December in Woking is because it’s something she thinks her kids will love.
“I play the wicked fairy,” she says. “And I get to sing, which is bloody brilliant. The kids think it’s great.
“I just want my kids to be happy. I think I’m a good mum. We love being together, we all talk about everything and I’m proud of the way my kids are.
“I’m not strict, but I do make sure they have good manners. My house is in constant chaos. Even if I’m in the bath, I have Princess in there wanting to wash my hair and Harvey putting soap on me. I shout and complain, but I love it really. I can’t even remember the last time I got to go to the loo on my own.”
So is she stopping at five?
She laughs: “I’m having a break at the moment because I had two kids in less than a year, and I need to get back to business with my perfume, my KP Bling, my equestrian range¿ I’m the one doing it all, so I need to have a bit of space to work.
“But this new house has 11 bedrooms and I want to keep going till they’re all filled. Even if the doctors tell me I can’t have any more, I’ll get my eggs frozen and have a surrogate. I love my kids – I want as many as I can possibly have.”
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