Dani Garavelli: Divorced from reality

WHAT a laugh. Katie "Jordan" Price and Peter Andre announce they are splitting up and ask people to "respect their privacy". Which is a bit like the Rolling Stones complaining about the noise next door. Or John Lydon urging foul-mouthed teenagers to tone down their language.

It's obviously intended as a little in-joke. Because as anyone who has followed their "careers" knows, the last thing the Jen and Brad of the Chav Pack would want is for their messy divorce proceedings to be conducted behind closed doors. Why, the very thought that Jade Goody might be cleaning up in the tabloid stakes was – according to her critics – enough to send the publicity-addicted Katie into a paroxysm of panic. (She criticised Goody for trading on her cancer and was banned from the funeral, thus securing herself a bit part in a story that had nothing to do with her).

There is so much more mileage to be had from her "shock" break-up with her reality TV husband. How could she possibly resist the siren call of the gossip mags, the photo spreads and the tittle-tattle of celebrity blogs that like nothing more than C-listers in meltdown? And so, what we saw last week was not two individuals trying to end their marriage as quietly as possible for the sake of the kids, but a scrabbling for column inches by a couple whose attention-seeking antics make Madonna and Guy Ritchie appear shy and retiring.

The disintegration of their combustible relationship had already been captured in the last episode of their reality TV show, Katie And Peter: Stateside – which contains the most embarrassing footage since George Galloway pretended to be Rula Lenska's cat. In the programme, broadcast on ITV2, Katie called her husband "a f***ing knob" and he called her "a stupid, miserable, arrogant cow" in a row over which of them was the more famous.

Since the announcement, "friends" of the privacy-demanding couple have supplied newspapers with a drip-feed of titbits to ensure the story doesn't lose momentum: Jordan had denied Peter sex for four and a half months; she was obsessed with her new horsey friends; photos of Jordan flirting with a man in a club pushed Peter over the edge; the man in the photo is gay, and on and on ad infinitum.

All this tawdriness would, I suppose, be quite tedious if it wasn't for the fact that, more than any other couple – more even than Posh and Becks – Katie and Peter have turned their lives into a real-time soap opera in which every verbal exchange, every crisis is carefully choreographed for maximum audience impact. Like Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show, the pair only exist to the extent that they are captured on camera: their relationship – which began when they appeared on I'm A Celebrity – was conceived in the public eye and has been moulded by public reaction ever since.

Of course, Katie Price has lived like that all her adult life. She created her alter-ego, Jordan, to give her exhibitionist tendencies an outlet, without allowing them to consume her. So Jordan could be a Page 3 model and a "tease", without Katie's self-respect being tarnished. As her profile grew, though; as she appeared in more TV shows, launched perfumes, wrote autobiographies and children's books and made millions, the boundaries between the two characters began to merge. Ironically, the more she demanded to be known as Katie, the more trashy, flashy Jordan seemed to rule the roost.

Some people talk about Katie as if she's an enigma, and you can see their point. They find it hard to reconcile the contradictions in her personality: the selfish vamp who partied her way through pregnancy with the mother who dotes on her handicapped son; the benefactor who gives hundreds of thousands to charity with the materialistic airhead who buys a pink Aston Martin on a whim. She messes with our heads in other ways too. Her topless modelling, her breast enhancements, her pre-Andre dalliances with footballers and pop stars make her a poor role model for teenage girls. But then again, she is also a shrewd businesswoman who has turned what talents she had to her advantage, and who is in complete control of her own earnings.

Such musings are only worthwhile, however, if you consider Katie a real person rather than a money-making device. To me, she is more of a blank canvas onto which we project our fantasies and preconceptions. There is no real point in asking who she is, because she's whoever you want her to be.

With the boundaries between fantasy and reality so blurred, any discussion about the dynamics of Katie and Peter's relationship is largely academic (although they do have three very real children – including Harvey, the blind and autistic son she had with footballer Dwight Yorke – whose futures are at stake). It may be interesting to consider if, by using Peter as her "punching bag", she might have lost both public sympathy and control of the plot. Certainly, there is evidence many now see Peter as the more sympathetic character.

But then again, the pair might be just toying with their audience; all that public acrimony could be a stunt which – depending on public reaction – might be followed by an emotional reunion. Why not go the whole hog, then, and turn this unedifying saga into the world's first interactive marital split? If you want the divorce to go ahead, complete with vicious custody battle and completely fictitious allegations of a steamy affair with Gordon Brown, press the blue button; if you want them to be reconciled, renew their wedding vows and have octuplets, press the green button. Alternatively, if you're sick of the whole affair, lock yourself in a darkened room until at least 2013.