I’ve been sexually assaulted three times, once by a celebrity and once in front of my children, says KATIE PRICE. Read a devastatingly honest exclusive extract from her memoir

Even after all these years I can still remember his ginger freckles. I can see them as clear as day, the intensity of them, sprawling over his face. It gave me something to fixate on, I suppose.

If I close my eyes, I can see his bald head with wisps of ginger hair. He was a complete stranger who was in my life for no more than a few minutes 39 years ago, and yet I can vividly see him like it was yesterday.

And that’s because this man, this monster, sexually assaulted me when I was seven years old. Seven.

Afterwards, he pointed up to a block of flats in the distance. ‘I’m going to go back there and get you a pound and an ice cream.’ His voice echoes in my head as I write this. I had gone to the park with my mum and some friends, and there was a bush that formed part of a cut-through to get there — a route I had taken countless times.

It was the middle of the day and the park, near our home in Hove, East Sussex, was full of children’s laughter and the sound of playing, but I was a world away in a nightmare of sexual exploitation. 

It was from that moment on that I felt men were always looking at me. I suppose having your innocence shattered from a young age does that to you. The police never found the man with the ginger freckles.

I have been a victim of sexual assault on two more occasions. The second was with a celebrity, but, though I want that acknowledged, I’m not going to be naming them here.

My third time was in South Africa in 2018, when I was filming for an ITV1 reality show, My Crazy Life, with a crew and two of my five children: my son, Junior, then 13, and my daughter, Princess, then 11.

This is what happened. Let me start from the very beginning.

When I was 15 years old, I met my best friend, Neil Tawse. I really fancied him from the moment I first saw him — he was the hunk of the gym.

But nothing ever happened. All these years on, we’ve remained friends. Actually, more than friends. We are best friends. We’ve never had sex and never had a one-night stand. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have thought that we’d get together, but we remain absolute best friends and I owe him my life.

He’s from South Africa, which is why I agreed to do the reality show. I said he could come with us and show us a bit of his native country. I wanted to show Junior and Princess the country too, and we arranged a safari.

 

Before we went, Neil and the director of the show discussed the route and what filming they would do to get all the best footage. It was all mapped out and everyone was happy.

We did the safari and afterwards the director wanted to do a longer, different route home. It was just two cars: a car with the film crew and ours, which had Neil, Junior and Princess and me in it. Neil was driving.

We had walkie-talkies with us and, after a while, I had to radio to the other car to say that Junior needed a wee. We were on a deserted road so we just stopped at the side.

Junior got out of the car and stood on top of a bank as I got out too. Princess was behind me. I heard Junior shout, ‘Oh, Mum, look over here! Imagine if I jumped down over that bit,’ pointing to the edge of the bank he was on, and I think I said something like, ‘Oh, Junior!’

The next thing I knew there was shouting around me. It was loud and it sounded like they were saying ‘Casa, casa, get in the f***ing car, car…’ I couldn’t quite understand but the shouts were so harsh and sudden.

We all just stood in stunned silence. We could see six guys getting out of a car. It took a minute or two for my brain to process what the hell was happening, but I instinctively grabbed the kids and ran back to the car.

My memory is a bit fuzzy with it all, if I’m honest. It happened so quickly, but at the time it seemed like it went on for ever. It was surreal. I kept thinking, ‘Is this happening? Is this actually happening? Am I dreaming?’

I could make out two men, who I now know to be hijackers, trying to get into the other car, where the film crew were, while the rest of them were around our car. I tried to shout to the film crew to come help us. But no one did. No one could.

It was terrifying — the kids were screaming and I kept saying to them, ‘Don’t worry, you’re fine, you’re fine. Everything will be OK.’ But I was absolutely petrified. I genuinely thought we were all going to die.

The next few minutes are all a horrible blur. They managed to get in my door. Their hands were all over me, and in me and down in my trousers. I just kept saying, ‘Get off me, get off me! I’ve got nothing!’ But they took everything, all the jewellery I had and my watch.

I saw some of the men try to go to the back of the car. Princess’s door wasn’t shut and I knew I wouldn’t let these men near my kids. I screamed bloody murder.

Next thing I remember is trying to find the keys to start the car and then I had the keys, but my hands were shaking so much I couldn’t get them in the ignition.

And then it was too late. The hijackers saw what I was doing and quickly snatched the keys off me. I always take a pillow with me and I put it up to my head thinking they were going to shoot me. I was waiting for them to shoot me through the pillow.

I just wanted to protect my kids. I was saying to Neil, ‘I haven’t got them, I haven’t got them, I haven’t got them.’ I must have meant the keys. I can remember the look on Neil’s face. He got out of the car and said to the men, ‘Right, come on then. If you f***ing want it, have it!’ 

And he started trying to beat them up. But there were so many of them. They started beating Neil. It was horrible. He managed to wrestle the keys back off them and get in the car but then they whacked him, I think with the butt of a gun. It was brutal and suddenly there was blood everywhere.

Neil was knocked out and the screaming from the rest of us was deafening. The look of complete fear on my kids’ faces is something I won’t ever forget; when you see your children living a horror story and you can’t stop it, it haunts you. Then suddenly, as quickly as it all happened, it went completely silent. The men had gone, taking the keys to both cars. It was a bit like a zombie film after that.

We all got out of our cars in a state of shock. And then the realisation hit that we had been given a chance to flee and to get help, and so we ran along the road, trying to flag down a car. But no one stopped. 

They all knew not to stop on this road. It was too dangerous. I started moving more and more into the road, the rush of adrenaline spurring me on. In the end, a family stopped. They could see I had my kids with me and that I wasn’t a hijacker.

I begged them to help us. The family looked at us and told us to call the police, but I kept saying, ‘We haven’t got any phones. They’ve taken our phones. They’ve taken everything.’ 

The family had seen the police just up the road, so they turned around to alert them. We were completely helpless, on our own at the side of the road, like sitting ducks. It felt like the police took ages to come. And we were terrified the hijackers were going to come back.

But the police arrived and we were finally safe. We sat in the back of the police car and an ambulance arrived for Neil too. He had stitches in his eye and to this day he can’t see properly and has a scar. Neil put his life on the line for us and it’s made our friendship stronger than ever.

The police told us that we were incredibly lucky to be alive. They explained that the hijackers would have taken our keys, gone away and dumped everything they had taken and then come back and finished off the job. So, basically, they’d come back to kill us and then nick our vehicles.

Some of the film crew flew back to the UK straight after it happened they were so traumatised, but all I remember thinking is, ‘Do we fly home or do we carry on filming? I need to work.’ After a couple of days, I decided to carry on. Now, I would insist on flying home in an instant.

Obviously, I was in shock. Why did I continue filming after the hijack and sexual assault? Why? Because I thought I would lose my contract and I needed to work.

The next adventure we’d agreed to was swimming with sharks. I mean, looking back now, swimming with f***ing sharks? What was I thinking!

We were out on the boat being told about the cage they’d put you in, and that we could ‘freestyle’ swim with sharks if we wanted. Neil and I decided to go straight in the water, with nothing between us and the sharks. 

Junior and Princess wanted to freestyle, too, but I made them go in a cage. I looked down into the water and there must have been about 30 sharks just swimming around us, some of them bigger than the boat.

There is no way I would ever do that again. But having been in a situation where I was convinced I was going to die, maybe there was a part of me that wanted to test death again, wondering ‘what on earth else can possibly happen to me? What else can I survive?’

I have always had to prove myself to others. I have always been told that I won’t be able to do this, or I can’t do that, or that I’m not good enough.

So, I kept working and kept trying to suppress everything that happened in South Africa, but, of course, that meant I never had time to draw a line under it.

There was always another thing, and then another thing, and it got to the point where everything was building up on top of me and I just wanted out. I wanted out of this life. I tried to kill myself. I tried to commit suicide. I ended up in the Priory, a rehab centre where I was treated for PTSD.

We’ve all been affected by the hijacking. It happened six years ago but I still find it hard to talk about. But, although it was horrifying, it also showed me that a mother’s love knows no limit. I was ready to give my life for my children as I sat in the car in front of them with a cushion over my face, preparing myself to hear the shot from the gun before the bullet entered my body.

That never came. I got a second chance at life and I’m not going to waste it.

This is Me: The High Life. The Dark Days. The FULL Story by Katie Price will be published by John Blake on July 18. © Katie Price 2024. To order a copy for £19.80 go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0203 176 2937. Offer valid until August 10, 2024, UK p&p.

The day bailiff bullies turned up at my home and said they’d arrest me  

It was surreal. Two bailiffs were standing in my kitchen, one of them drinking tea from an old mug that had a topless photo of me with the name ‘Jordan’ on it.

This was 9.30am on a random Tuesday morning earlier this year.

A few months earlier, this situation would have been the end of my world. I would have been inconsolable at the word ‘bailiff’.

The thought of strangers coming into my house would have triggered fear so deep, I would have found myself back in the Priory, where I had been treated for PTSD after the hijacking in South Africa. But it didn’t. And I am not.

The first time they came it took me a while to register who they were because they didn’t look like policemen, but they wore the same blue body vests and had walkie-talkies and body cameras.

They came into my home and suddenly it didn’t feel like a safe space any more, because it was being invaded by an enemy. Only this enemy you can’t fight back against. This enemy you have to surrender to.

And the invasions continued. They come in and they exert a physical presence that makes your heart beat really fast and your hands shake. Then they come again. And again. Never the same ones, always a different company.

The second or third time they came, one of them was a real bully. He presented me with an unpaid fine for using the Dartford Crossing. ‘I don’t have a car! I don’t drive! I don’t even have a driving licence!’ I said.

But then he became aggressive. Bullying. He tried to intimidate me and said, ‘We aren’t taking anything. We know you can pay it.’

He didn’t show me any paperwork or evidence. He just kept repeating that he wasn’t leaving without payment.

I was so confused and shocked. Not only was I being asked to pay for something I didn’t do but I was being told he could take my stuff but he wouldn’t.

I think my anger had kicked in a little by that point as I said to him that I’d seen Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away! — a documentary about bailiffs, and he could take whatever he likes.

Then he said he would arrest me. I had no idea whether he had the power to do that. But I was so angry, I was shaking.

Now I wonder how the stronger me would react? I would probably say something like, ‘OK then, arrest me. That won’t get you your money, but go ahead.’ I’d call their bluff. But, instead, I paid the fine.

Then there was another set of bailiffs who turned up, came into my house and told me I owed Council Tax.

‘No,’ I told them, ‘I pay my Council Tax on a monthly basis, just like everyone else. I can show you.’ And, of course, they didn’t believe me. ‘We wouldn’t have been sent here if you paid it,’ they snarled.

‘I have absolutely no idea why you have turned up,’ I repeated.

‘I know she pays it. I’m her PA, I have all the statements,’ piped in my wonderful personal assistant, Jess.

‘We have no evidence of her paying it so we are going to take goods and put locks on the door,’ said one.

It was only after seeing all my bank statements that they left. No apology, just gone.

But surely they would have had to check this sort of thing before they came? Which makes me paranoid and nervous. Were they really bailiffs? Did I ask for ID?

I’m not an aggressive person. I don’t do confrontations. I just need things explaining to me.

Do bailiffs try their luck? Is there a secret WhatsApp group that they are part of, where they say to each other, ‘Katie Price is worth a try, we got a truckload of goods from her last time we went,’ followed by a laughing emoji or something?

It turned out the Dartford Crossing charge had been run up by an ex in a car that was still registered to me. The bailiffs who came earlier this year and sat drinking tea in my kitchen explained it all to me properly. Not all bailiffs are bad.

‘Thank you for being nice,’ I said as they went.

‘Yeah, we are nice bailiffs,’ one of them replied. ‘But don’t tell people that because we have our reputation to think of.’