they must have a better sense of humour than we gave them credit for, because nobody could be that stupid or shallow. The news that Katie Price (the pair of ever-fluctuating breasts formerly know as Jordan) and her husband of three years, Peter Andre, have appealed for privacy in the wake of their marriage split can only be taken with a mountain of salt.

"Peter Andre and Katie Price have requested that the media respect their families' privacy at this difficult time," said a spokesperson earlier this week, presumably while keeping a straight face.

The couple's 'heartfelt' plea to assorted media cannot be given any credence whatsoever since Andre and Price always appeared content to live out their marriage in conjunction with OK! magazine and countless television specials, where they proclaimed their endless love (and occasional abuse) for each other.

Many will see this is as an apt end to a relationship that began in a blaze of publicity on the reality television programme, I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! (quite the misnomer, along with her former occupation of 'glamour model'), but Price and Andre's apparent addiction to the oxygen of fame must have been a factor in their announcement.

How else can you explain their desire to share every aspect of themselves, including intimate details of their sex lives and arguments? (Price memorably once called Andre a "fucking c**t" in an episode of their reality TV show. Classy.)

Whether these incidents were manufactured or exaggerated is not really the issue -- but it goes to show how desperate they were to keep themselves in the public eye. It also signified the steady decline of their dignity in favour of making a fast buck.

And if any more proof were needed, Price provided it this week. The ink was barely dry on the couple's appeal for privacy when she was already making statements to the press about how she was "devastated" at her husband's decision to call time on their marriage. "This is not what I want and the decision has been taken out of my hands," she said, before claiming that she won't be making any further comment on the split.

Well, not this week. Maybe. At a push.

But you could wager a sizeable sum that Price is already re-negotiating her exclusivity deal with OK! magazine to reveal the gory details of the split and a ghost-writer is already hard at work on the fourth version of her autobiography. (Why a 30-year-old requires three autobiographies is anyone's guess and a topic for another day.)

I met Price once, or Jordan as she was then largely known. She was the guest of honour at the opening of a store on Henry Street and I had the dubious honour of a 10-minute interview with her on the shop floor. At the time, she was just starting to become a fixture in lads' magazines and seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with the size of her breasts. While it is difficult to get a handle on someone's personality in such a short period of time, I remember thinking -- aside from how she managed to balance upright with the equivalent of two basketballs bouncing around on her chest -- that she hadn't a lot going on upstairs.

Considering the success of her business ventures since then -- profitably lending her name to everything from children's books to novels and bedroom linen -- she has more of the smarts than I gave her credit for. But the collateral damage seems to have been a steady erosion of her dignity. Price's love of fame and making as much money as possible in as short a time as possible appears to have long clouded her judgement, making her and her husband gross caricatures of what stars should really be.

I give them two weeks until they're renewing their vows in a celebratory issue of OK! Tops.

- Garreth Murphy