U.K. glamour model Katie Price shocked a studio audience, which included her husband and mother, last week when she suddenly revealed that she had been sexually molested by a “weirdo in some park” when she was six years old, and exploited by a pedophile posing as a photographer when she was thirteen. Price, also known in Britain as Jordan, was doing an appearance on Piers Morgan’s daytime talk show when she suddenly, tearfully blurted out the story.

As a stunned silence descends on the studio, Katie, 30, glances nervously at her mum Amy and husband Peter Andre in the audience before struggling to carry on.

“In a park, but yeah. I don’t know. I’ve never really . . . Oh my God, what’s the matter with me?” she tells Morgan, her voice shaking with emotion.

Trying to pull herself together, she goes on: “Compose. Hang on. It’s alright. I’m strong. Compose.

“Some weirdo. Oh, you know what I’m saying. Just some weirdo in a park.“

Asked if the man abused her, Katie nods her head. She adds: “Well, it’s never affected me. But obviously it must have done, for me to just feel like that. But I don’t know. You just learn to get on with things, don’t you?

“I haven’t got a problem normally with it so I don’t know why I do have a problem with it now.”

Katie later revealed she was only six when the attack happened in a park near her home.

She had been out with a school pal. Her mum was chatting with a friend on a nearby bench while Katie and her friend played hide and seek in bushes. A man appeared and promised to buy the two girls an ice cream. The pervert then lined up the two terrified girls and exposed himself. He also touched the girls.

Katie was terrified by the attack but too afraid to scream. She felt she should do what the attacker said.

Eventually some older children saw what was happening and scared the attacker off. Her mother immediately called the the police but the paedophile quickly disappeared and was never caught.

Mum-of-three Katie had already had the studio audience on the edge of their seats as she told Morgan of her ordeal at the hands of the photographer her mum had hired to help launch her modeling career at 13. He turned out to be a pervert who insisted she pose in her underwear. Photos of her were later found plastered over the walls of his home. The man was later convicted of child sex offences. Katie said: “He had 11 different names and 11 different bank accounts. I always thought he was a bit of a weirdo.”

…Katie has now largely given up being Jordan, the mega-boobed lads’ mag model. But she claims during her interview that she partly created the character to get back at the men who had hurt her. In addition to her ordeals with two perverts, Katie told how she was also beaten at the hands of her first boyfriend, a man 11 years her senior, who took her virginity.

[From News of the World]

That’s a lot of personal trauma to be revealing on a television show. And as much as Katie Price insists that these incidents have “never bothered” her before, I don’t see how they couldn’t have affected her. It’s quite common, unfortunately, for women who’ve been sexually abused to act out sexually later in life and to have body and self-esteem issues – which Katie clearly has, given that she’s had almost as much plastic surgery as Michael Jackson. I’m not sure why she chose to go so public with this information – things she managed to keep hidden even after writing several memoirs. I hope it wasn’t done to get viewers or attention – and I hope Katie gets some support to help her deal with this. Talking about this kind of abuse can be almost as traumatic as living through it.

Katie Price and Peter Andre are shown taking their children Junior and Princess Tiaamii for lunch at Gladstones 4 Fish in LA on 3/1/09. Credit: WENN