Katie Price has opened up about a traumatic time in her life which resulted in her attempting suicide after hitting rock bottom - but says the reason she never went through with it was her love for her five kids.
The 44-year-old has lived a turbulent life in the public eye for a long time and her experiences with failed marriages, child custody battles, bankruptcy and – most recently – narrowly avoiding jail for a drink-drive smash have taken a toll, writes The Mirror.
Now, in her new Channel 4 documentary, Katie speaks out about her mental health crisis and recent PTSD diagnosis – admitting she has been like “a ticking time bomb”.
Katie says: “I’ve got anxiety, depression and major trauma and I tried to kill myself. I tried to hang myself. I knocked myself out. I had black eyes, bruises around my neck. I didn’t want to be here. But all I saw was the kids’ faces and I don’t ever want that to happen again.”
The star – mum to Harvey, 20, Junior, 17, Princess, 15, Jett, nine and Bunny, eight – adds: “It was a nightmare. I didn’t give a s*** if I lived or died. I’ve been struggling with my mental health for some time.”
Filmed in the aftermath of her smash in September 2021, she opens up in Katie Price: Trauma And Me about what led her to breaking point. Katie admits that after the crash, which left her car on its side, she realised she needed to change and went into rehab. “I could have killed myself,” she says. “I could have killed someone else. I deserved to be punished, enough was enough.
“Getting in the car was a terrible mistake I’m so sorry for. That was a prime example of me having been triggered and not knowing how to handle it, an example of me spiralling out of control because I needed help.”
Katie also says her PTSD comes after a lifetime of trauma – including three kidnap threats, being held at gunpoint in South Africa and scarring relationships with men. She says everything went downhill after she split from first husband Peter Andre in 2009. Katie then married cage fighter Alex Reid in 2010, divorcing two years later. She wed third husband Kieran Hayler in 2013 but they divorced in 2019.
Admitting she wished she “had kept my mouth shut” at times, Katie – now engaged to Carl Woods – says she will use therapy “the rest of my life”, adding: “Therapy is probably what I needed for a long time. I was poorly. Mental health is cruel, people don’t understand it.”
Katie hopes the show will challenge the stigma around mental health. She speaks to Jacqui Suttie, who set up charity PTSD UK, and a former soldier who has PTSD. And she reconnects with the man who pulled her out of her BMW after he saw her crash. Katie says: “I hope people see this and see how I’ve been damaged. Now everything is under control. I’m glad that I turned my life around.”
Katie Price: Trauma And Me, will be screened tonight, 9pm, Channel 4'
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