SARAH VINE: Anyone with half a heart can see that Katie deserves our sympathy, not our shame

This is something I never thought I would say: I feel sorry for Katie Price. The former glamour model was arrested at Heathrow Airport last week as she returned to the UK from Turkey, having just undergone her sixth facelift.

Something about her battered, heavily bandaged face, the puffed lips and the birdlike body with the two awkward-looking, balloon-like breasts just seemed so utterly tragic, so sad. She was putting on, as she always does, a brave front. But she is clearly a broken soul.

I realise that this may not be a popular view. Many people, if they care about her at all, believe that her downfall – her two bankruptcies, first in 2019 and again in March (this arrest comes after she failed to appear at a hearing into her £760,000 HMRC debt) – is her own fault, the result of disorganisation, greed, moral degeneracy and general debauchery.

Her chaotic love affairs, her five children with three fathers, her frequent traffic violations, her dirty home life… she is, many will say, the architect of her own misery and deserves everything she gets.

I disagree. Sure, she’s made mistakes, and sure, she’s broken the rules and tried to game the system. Sure, she’s vulgar and generally rude. But underneath it all is someone who deserves our sympathy, not our shame. She needs help, not punishment.

Katie Price was arrested at Heathrow Airport last week as she returned to the UK from Turkey after having just undergone her sixth facelift

Anyone with half a heart can see that she’s not doing well. As someone who remembers her when she first came on the scene in the late 90s, as her alter ego Jordan, I think she’s always been… well, a little extra.

Her lack of physical or personal boundaries was always noticeable. There was a sense that nothing was off-limits, as long as the price was right. And for a long time, it was. She made millions by flogging her body, her books, her personal life. She exposed herself at every opportunity, earned every inch of herself. And yet no one—least of all Price herself—ever stopped to ask, why?

To me it is clear, a story as old as life itself. A Hogarthian tale of desperation and corruption, a working class girl, abandoned by her father, abused by men, with limited life choices, seeking fame, fortune and a better future in all the wrong places.

If it is true, as she claims, that she was raped in a park at age seven, it doesn’t take a genius to see how that has destroyed her self-confidence. Abused children always feel worthless, while at the same time desperately seeking validation. They crave love, but don’t know how to hold on to it.

Price’s need to find validation and meaning through her multiple marriages and children is an example of this. She destroyed what was probably her best chance for long-term stability and happiness with the singer and TV personality Peter Andre, also the father of her two children, Princess and Junior.

Andre was everything she wanted and probably needed: stability, a responsible father, a shrewd businessman – but she eventually left him for a bad boy, cage fighter Alex Reid, which ended in bitterness and tears. As did her subsequent marriage to stripper Kieran Hayler, the father of her two youngest children.

In all of these relationships, Price was clearly looking for something real, something long-lasting, a fairytale fantasy of romance and eternal love. But when you’re as damaged as she is, it’s hard to resist that demon on your shoulder.

Her stated desire to have more children is part of that. Children represent a second chance, a clean slate—at least in her eyes. Of course, any reasonable person looking at her situation would see that the last thing she needs is another mouth to feed. But for her, having a child is another roll of the dice. It’s selfish and stupid—but that’s how damaged she is.

As for the addiction to plastic surgery, it is clearly a very costly and extremely dangerous form of self-harm. She seeks refuge in these surgeries. It is clearly a way to run away from herself and her mistakes, again her attempt to make a fresh start by changing her appearance.

So yes, she is a car crash of a woman, her own worst enemy, the architect of her own downfall. But I still feel sorry for her. Because in the end, the only person she really hurts is herself.

Despite all her bravado and attitude, she is a sad, lonely, and ultimately tragic figure whose only real source of income – her looks – is eluding her.

But she does have one success story: her eldest son Harvey, who is disabled. The way she has cared for him and stood up for him in the face of vile online trolls is a testament to her strength of character.

I hope for his sake that the courts take that into consideration when deciding her fate. And I hope that she gets the help that she needs and that one day she learns to love herself for who she is and not for what she thinks people want her to be.

As the government prepares to impose VAT on school fees, pushing thousands of children into the overcrowded public sector, how long before Rachel Reeves turns her attention to other rich sources of income and targets other VAT-free services, such as private healthcare?

Thanks to the long NHS waiting lists, more people than ever before are turning to the private sector. Is this now seen by Comrade Reeves as a bourgeois ‘luxury’ and plundered accordingly?

The women fighting a losing battle

Athlete Caster Semenya, who has the intersex condition 5-alpha-reductase 2 deficiency (5ARD), which causes the male reproductive organs to not develop properly, is adamant that ‘my internal testicles do not make me any less of a woman’.

I’m afraid this is simply not true, as these testicles, internal or otherwise, are still producing testosterone in the male range, with all the physical benefits that entails.

Boxer Imane Khelif has just won gold in the women’s welterweight in Paris, destroying her opponents on every stage

That is why boxer Imane Khelif, who has a similar condition and also has a Y chromosome, recently won gold in the women’s welterweight division in Paris, crushing her opponents on all fronts.

No one disputes that these two individuals—along with a third, Taiwanese lightweight Lin Yu-ting—identify as women. The question is whether it is fair for them to compete with other women who do not have their advantages and could never reach their strength level no matter how hard they trained.

The only way they could do that would be through doping – that is, flooding their bodies with male hormones. And that would be cheating, of course.

Gymnastics is without a doubt my favorite Olympic sport. Women like Simone Biles and Rebeca Andrade seem to defy all the laws of physics while displaying the utmost grace. But even more amazing is their dedication to appearance. Shiny long claws, towering hair, elaborate makeup and jewelry. It’s a spring floor, not a dance floor, ladies!

Women like Simone Biles and Rebeca Andrade seem to defy all the laws of nature while displaying the utmost grace, writes Sarah Vine

I thought nothing could top the French pole vaulter whose excellent cross cost him his Olympic dream, but then came Australian breakdancer ‘Raygun’, whose hilariously so-bad-it’s-good routine made Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards look like a pro. Surely this has to be a joke?

The admirable speed and efficiency with which the courts have dealt with those involved in the far-right riots that erupted across Britain following the Southport stabbings shows that this country can still get its house in order if it wants to.

But it also begs the question: why does the suspect in the murders, Axel Rudakubana, have to stand trial only in January next year? The least the grieving families deserve is the same swift justice as the victims of last week’s riots.

There is little chance that the BBC will get their £200,000 back from Huw Edwards. That man will never work again.