Privacy appeal as Andre and Price separate

KATIE PRICE and her husband, Peter Andre, are to separate, a statement on behalf of the pair said yesterday.

The couple have been married for three-and-a-half years and found romance on the reality show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

The statement said: “Peter Andre and Katie Price are separating.

“They have both requested that the media respect their families’ privacy at this difficult time.”

Their relationship is ending the way it began – in a blaze of publicity.

From the first stirrings of romance on a reality show, to a wedding splashed across the magazines and a marriage chronicled in newspapers, books and on TV, their life together has been conducted in the full gaze of the cameras.

Today’s announcement may surprise many who watched Price and Andre present a convincing show of unity as they completed the London Marathon together a little over a fortnight ago. And this weekend, the pair were snapped hand-in-hand for a quiet dinner in London – although the night before, Price, who has told of Andre’s unease about her drinking, was seen flashing her cleavage on an evening out in Bristol.

The showbiz columns and weekly magazines that follow the pair’s every move have long been reporting cracks within the relationship, prompting Price to respond to rumours she was feeling low and her marriage was in trouble.

The glamour model-turned-branding empire met Andre – past his heyday as a teen dream pop star – on the jungle set of ITV’s reality show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in 2004.

The pair’s blossoming romance gripped millions of viewers and sparked a tabloid frenzy, which they continued to fuel as they pursued the relationship after the show ended.

Price, who already had a son, Harvey, suffering from disabilities, by footballer Dwight Yorke, went on to have another with Andre in June 2005, whom they named Junior.

For their wedding a few months later – an over-the-top fiesta of pink and glitter at which the bride arrived in a glass Cinderella carriage – the couple signed deals with OK! magazine and ITV.

The following year Price suffered a miscarriage, leaving the couple devastated, but in June 2007 they celebrated the birth of a daughter, Princess Tiaamii, taken from the names of Andre’s mother, Thea, and Jordan’s mother, Amy.

While married, Price and Andre have maintained little division between their private and public selves, sharing intimate details of their sex life and hurling insults at each other on their ITV fly-on-the-wall documentary.

The model, a self-confessed “workaholic”, has also capitalised on her role as a mother-of-three by becoming a successful children’s author.

Andre has enjoyed a lower profile as an individual, though he recorded an album with his wife and hopes to relaunch his music career with a new album he produced in LA.