The truth is, they aren't all that big. The truth is, they're
only 32DD, not 34FF. The truth is, she's not going to have any more operations
on them. That's the truth. Isn't it?
There's been so many stories, so many rumours, so many maybes, it's hard
to know.
Only she knows the truth, and even though she's written her autobiography,
and written it to set the record straight, Katie Price, aka Jordan, doesn't
seem to be telling.
"I'm only giving you one word answers," she says, pushing a piece
of rich, sticky chocolate brownie in between her pink, pillowy lips with
one perfectly manicured hand and speed-signing her name in magic marker
on a copy of her book with the other, "because you'll just make stuff
up about me anyway."
I want to tell her I don't make stuff up. Even if I did, I couldn't make
up stuff like this.
Everyone knows who Jordan is, or at least, who they think she is. A gobby
bird with big boobs and blonde hair. Sleeps around. Got a son by a footballer.
Falls out of clubs three sheets to the wind.
But then there's Katie, Katie Price. Single mum to a poorly toddler. Cancer
victim. Loves her horses. Loves her family.
Two parts of the same person; two halves of a whole. Which one is in the
ascendant today is anyone's guess.
But the crowds who have sat for three, four, five hours waiting for her
to turn up to a Borders booksigning, seem to know who they want.
Two lads, students more than likely, shamble out of Borders' travel section,
one clutching a book. The Rough Guide to Jordan. They look at each other,
snigger, and climb on the escalator, descending to where crowds have gathered
in anticipation.
There's all sorts here. Curious office workers, wondering how long they
spin out their lunchbreak. Harrassed mums and screaming toddlers.
Mouthy lads bunking off school on the off chance they'll cop a flash of
the most famous boobs in Britain.
And a good half-dozen or more Jordan wannabes, all so similar with their
tiny skirts, tight tops and straight, yellowy-blonde hair, it's as if they've
just dropped off the assembly line.
But there's only one original, and she is two hours late.
A slightly bored-sounding voice booms over the Tannoy to remind people
that if they are here for the Jordan event they won't get an autograph
unless they have a numbered ticket.
"We apologise for the delay, but Jordan will be with us shortly."
The crowd, who have queued up like shoppers at a deli to get their slice
of the Jordan experience, groan.
Meanwhile, the meat they're so hungry for is stuck somewhere near Castle
Bromwich.
When she finally turns up, to the strains of maybe-lover Peter Andre's
Mysterious Girl, the crowd go mental.
Right at that moment, Jesus himself could walk in and no-one would care.
But now they don't seem to know who they want. Some shout for Jordan. Others
are asking, in somewhat inpolite language, if Katie would please show them
her assets.
She, whoever she is, tiptoes in on huge high heels, fairy-like except for
the famous bosom that juts proudly out from her tiny frame like the shelf
of a mantelpiece. Clad in Barbie pink, she's so delicate-looking she could
almost be a doll herself. It's not that the boobs are big, it's she who's
small.
She parks herself in a chair behind a desk piled with books. Above her
blonde head hovers the sign Mind/Body/Spirit.
An old lady, who says she's been standing there for five hours because "I
just wanted a look at her," unclips the barrier cord and pushes her
way through the photographers to have a good gawp.
She doesn't like what she sees. She turns her nose up in disgust and stalks
off.
Katie Price became Jordan in the summer of 1996. It's not a name she chose.
It was suggested by a man named Paul, assistant to her first agent, Samantha
Bond, Sam.
Katie was still there, underneath, at home, off camera. But turn on the
lights, and out stepped Jordan.
Photoshoots followed. Boob jobs. Fame. Kiss and tell.
And then came I'm A Celebrity. For whatever reason, Jordan became Katie
again.
Jordan was still there. But now Katie wanted a piece of the action, too.
In her autobiography, Being Jordan, she writes about how the press are
obsessed with her, how one of the things they love to go on about most
is her being two people, "how sex-mad Jordan has taken over sweet
Katie Price and ruined her".
She admits putting on an act for the cameras, and says she doesn't have
a split personality. Which is fair enough. But when she recently turned
up to be interviewed by Simon Mayo on Radio Five Live and told him "I've
arrived as Kate", it all started to get a bit confusing.
Then there were the photos in the glossy women's mag, where her normally
straight-as-pumpwater, extension'd hair was left to fall back into its
natural kink and curls. There was less eye makeup.
And the only flesh she showed was her shoulders, rising up out of a froth
of net and lace. It was more fashion model than glamour model. In one moody,
close-up black and white shot, her head downwards and lips pouting - although
not in that lips apart, panting page three style - she looked like Bridget
Bardot or a Vadim-era Jane Fonda.
In her book, writing about the time she was, ahem, in the words of the
song "Torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool," she says: "It
was as if there were two people fighting inside me - typical Gemini!"
So who is she today, at this book signing? I'm hoping for Katie. I'm hoping
she proves me and all my middle-class media misconceptions about her wrong.
Part of me even wants to like her, sympathise with her because of some
of the awful stuff that's happened in her life. But I think I've got Jordan.
Certainly she answers any questions put to her as Jordan. Sharp, sassy,
snappy.
"Being here? Yeah, it's as good as whereever I've been," she
says, in a somewhat bolshie manner, before adding, a little uncertainly, "Well
it was nice because I didn't know how many people were going to turn up.
I didn't know if anyone would, because I get slated so much."
Who does she think they've come to see, Jordan or Katie?
"Hopefully Jordan, because no-one knows who Katie is yet. This is
just the beginning," she beams.
"There's a lot more to come from Jordan, and lots, lots more from
Katie."
This makes it even more confusing. She's talking about her persona and
her real self in the third person, as if they are other people.
This might make life easier for her, and no-one could blame her for wanting
to do that, with the amount of adverse publicity she gets, but it means
that every smart-arse journalist going, myself included, is bound to think
if she's talking about them as separate entities, then who the hell is
she?
Well, she's a clever businesswoman. You might think she's just some thick
bint who gets her boobs out, that it doesn't take brains to do that. And
it doesn't. You can see women flashing their boobs any time you want.
Just look for the rowdy hen night on any high street in any town on any
Saturday night.
But to do it and make money out of it, and, more to the point, to keep
doing it and keep making money out of it, that's something else altogether.
Jilly Johnson, Sam Fox, Linda Lusardi, they've got nothing on this girl,
this skinny little girl with big boobs who's signing books like her life
depends on it and saying yes, please, she will have a hot chocolate and
another chocolate brownie, even though she should be on a diet, really.
Because she knows that glamour models, just like footballers and champion
racehorses, reach their sell-by date eventually. One day, people won't
want to see pictures of her any more. So she's lining her pockets now,
in readiness. And no-one could blame her, whoever she is, for that.
"I don't want to be like anyone else," she says.
"I don't want to be like anyone but myself. I like to be an original,
a one-off."
Miss Price, Katie, Jordan, whoever you are, you're certainly that. (C) 2004 - rolfprade at yahoo.de
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