Katie Price on relationship with Harvey: "I know I’m a good mum and he’s a credit to me"

Few people would have expected Katie Price to be the subject of one of the great TV documentaries about parenting.

But Harvey and Me, broadcast on BBC1 last January, was a supremely touching show about the mother-son relationship. Now she has done it again with the follow-up: Katie Price: What Harvey Did Next. Price is the former Page Three model known as Jordan, turned best-selling novelist, reality show star, entrepreneur, thrice-married mother of five and scandal magnet. Harvey, her oldest child, is autistic. He also has Prader-Willi syndrome, a genetic condition resulting in obesity (he weighs around 28 stone) and septo-optic dysplasia, a disorder that affects sight and the development of the brain (he has the cognitive understanding of a seven-year-old). Price and Harvey make for a wonderful team – sweet, funny, sweary, shocking and loving.

When Harvey was born she was told he would not be able to walk, talk or see. Now at 19, he can do all three and at the beginning of the programme is heading off to a college for young adults with special needs. There are no miracles – he still has violent outbursts, refuses to attend classes, and sometimes pines for Price. But it’s a remarkable achievement nonetheless.

Price, who is at home in Sussex when we Zoom, tells me that Harvey has been the one constant in her topsy-turvy adulthood. “I’m 44 this year, and Harvey has been with me through the whole rollercoaster. He has been the most consistent person in my life who has seen me laugh and cry, sad and happy. He doesn’t judge it and he doesn’t question it. All he wants is for me to be there for him.”

And it’s been another rollercoaster of a week-end. We speak a couple of days after she has been headline news again. The Sun reported that she was facing a possible five-year jail sentence after breaching a court-imposed ban and sending an abusive text to the new fiancée of her third husband, Kieran Hayler. She says she can’t tell me what really happened because of legal restrictions, but insists it wasn’t quite as reported. Anyway, today, she’s here to talk about Harvey. I tell her that as the father of an autistic child, I marvel at her relationship with him. “Whatever people think of me, whether they love me or hate me, you can’t fake that relationship. I know I’m a good mum and he’s a credit to me. No one can take that away from me. Not a lot of people would cope like I have.”

Price says caring has always come naturally to her. “A lot of people are afraid to approach anyone with special needs or in a wheelchair. They don’t know how to act. It can be daunting. You just have to talk to people like you do in the street.” She’s right. She never patronises Harvey or his friends. “I think I’ve got a special gift – if someone was having a meltdown, I know I’d be able to cope and calm them down.” Has she ever considered going into the caring professions? “All the time. I would say I was a carer. That’s why I was training to be a nurse when I left school. I would train to be a para- medic now if I could find time.”

Price is extraordinarily patient with Harvey, and he pays her back with the purest love. They have call and response routines. “Hip-hip,” Harvey says. “Hooray!” Price responds. She takes him train-spotting at stations and shows enthusiasm even though it bores her silly. Harvey has an infectious enthusiasm for life (“How awesome is this, Mum!”) and a winning politeness. She adores him and makes sure he knows it. “I’m so proud of you, Price!” she tells him. When he’s being a typical adolescent slob, she embraces his normality. “You’re just a messy teenager, Pricycles.”

Price clearly loves all her children, but she knows her relationship with Harvey is special – not simply because of his needs, but because the other four have fathers in their life. Does Harvey ever see his dad? “No. My mum has tried to be in contact. But he’s just not interested.” She doesn’t mention former footballer Dwight Yorke by name. “I’d love to know if he’s seen the documentaries. He’s seen Harvey about nine times in his life.” Price says Yorke doesn’t know what he’s missing out on. “You can have so much fun with Harv. He has so much banter. I don’t get it.” Yorke should be so proud of what his son has achieved, she says. Were her former husbands Peter Andre, Alex Reid and Kieran Hayler good with Harvey? At the time, she says, but ultimately, she claims they let him down. “When they’re with me they make out, ‘I’ll adopt him, I’ll do this and that’, but as soon as you split they don’t want to know.

Explaining that to Harvey has been very difficult because he has emotions and he’s not silly. Imagine how upsetting it is for him because he probably doesn’t know why they don’t want to see him. How do you explain that to a child?” Andre has previously disputed Price’s version of events and said of his bond with her son: “Harvey will always be special to me”. She admits that her relationship with Harvey has caused friction with the men in her life. “They’re like, ‘You spend more time cuddling Harvey than you do me’. Sometimes they get a bit jealous of my relationship with Harv. It’s tough luck, because Harvey’s only got me.”

What makes the new documentary so compelling is that while Harvey tries to adjust to his new life, Price is struggling in his absence. While his going to college offers her new freedoms, it also provides her with the opportunity to self destruct. One day she drives under the influence and has a terrible accident, only avoiding a jail sentence by agreeing to treatment for addiction at the Priory rehab clinic. Price is ashamed. She says she had been under huge stress, and again insists she can’t provide details for legal reasons. But she suggests that much of it is related to hounding by the tabloids. She knows some will argue she has spent her life invading her own privacy, so how can she expect journalists to respect it, but she says that does not give the press licence to stalk her.

Suddenly she looks surprisingly vulnerable. “The media are constantly trolling me. It’s unfair. But they’re goading and goading me. It’s as if they want me to go and kill myself. The way they are goading me is so disgusting.” It’s a shocking thing to say, but I think she means it. “The paparazzi are outside my house, following me in cars. If I was a normal woman, I’d call the police and say, ‘I’m being followed by three men in a car and I’m scared, can you help me?’ They’d go and arrest those guys for stalking. But when I say I’m Katie Price they say, ‘You’re in the public eye, there’s nothing we can do’.”

A couple of years ago, she says, she reached a terrible low. “I tried to kill myself before I ended up in the Priory. The only reason I didn’t was because of my children. So, if my kids weren’t here I wouldn’t be here today. Fact. The kids saved me.” Price is a fascinating character. Instantly recognisable as the brash, flash celeb of tabloid legend, yet so much more nuanced. As for the future, she is hoping that Harvey settles down at college. He is already hugely loved there, has made good friends, and has smashed up his TV and computer. The latter is a good sign, she says; it means he’s started to think of college as home. Price knows he is dangerously obese, but she says she’s trying her best. “If it was easy to get him to eat well and exercise I’d have done it. It’s not easy, trust me.”

As it is, she says, she is unbelievably proud of what Harvey has achieved. “The fact that he’s got to college and has adapted to the change is amazing.” People ask her what she thinks he will be doing in five years, and she says it’s impossible to answer.

The smile is back on her face now. “I’m just delighted that he's happy, alive and able to communicate.”

Katie Price: What Harvey did next airs on BBC One tonight at 9pm. If you're looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide. Check out our Documentaries hub for all the latest news.

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