Who is the real Jordan?

It came from Jordan, the 25-year- old model more generally known for her extraordinary embonpoint than for her even temper.

Or perhaps we should call her by her real name, Katie Price - as she has insisted the other contestants do. For Katie is the homely, family-loving girl from Sussex who transformed herself into Jordan with a series of breast operations and a wardrobe of skimpy clothes.

The public has previously seen plenty of Jordan but little of Katie, yet she is already, even in the early stages of the competition, emerging as a surprisingly sympathetic character behind the familiar over-inflated breasts.
This down-to-earth 'other' Jordan is, it appears, an amiable personality who is proving warmly supportive of the other contestants; and she showed a mature self-possession during her 'bush tucker' trial-by-insect, despite a self-confessed fear of spiders.

Not, of course, that Jordan has proved averse to displaying the assets for which she is most famous, or indeed her neat derriere. Both have already been revealed by her tight-fitting skimpy vest top and the startling pink thong she has chosen as her 'swimwear' for the trip.

It is precisely the contrast between her artificially-enhanced appearance and her pared-down jungle persona that affords us a fascinating insight into the complexities of Jordan's split personality - not to mention the chance to observe at first hand the workings of an astute businesswoman who knows exactly where one persona begins and the other ends.

Certainly, the contrast between the two personalities could not be more striking.

There is Jordan, the woman the public are used to seeing splashed in revealing poses in tabloid newspapers, wearing next to no clothes, sporting full make-up bordering on warpaint, and indulging in public behaviour bordering on the pornographic.

Jordan has hair extensions, false nails, a liposuctioned bottom and a staggeringly enhanced top half.

And she has spawned a thousand imitations among young women who perceive her as an enviable example of the way exploiting your looks and sexuality can prove an easy ticket to fame and wealth.

Then there is Katie Price, a naturally pretty girl with curly hair and a slim, athletic figure which she tends to keep covered by comfortable baggy tracksuits. A homebody, she enjoys playing with her menagerie of animals on her Sussex estate and is a devoted mother to her 20-month-old son Harvey.

That Jordan is a created personality is in little doubt. For while the name was settled on by chance - when Katie was asked to cover for another model at short notice and forced to come up with a false name - the phenomenon of Jordan is far from accidental.

And her roots, one suspects, lie in a confused little girl with a disrupted childhood and a series of unsavoury experiences as a teenager.

Katie, who has an older brother and younger sister, had a largely suburban upbringing in Brighton, although she barely knew her father.

Katie's father, Ray Infield, a furniture dealer, left her mother Amy when she was just a little girl. The divorce was difficult and disruptive and Katie remembers moving house several times as a child.

Latterly, some stability came through Paul Price, a local businessman whom her mother then married, giving Katie his name.

A naturally pretty child, Katie learned all too young that her looks could attract the wrong kind of attention. At seven years of age, she was molested by a passer-by in a park. Not long after, another stranger tried to pull her into his car.

And at 13, thrust into the world of amateur modelling after being taken to a local talent scout by her mother, she was persuaded by a photographer to strip down to her underwear while on a shoot for a clothes catalogue.

Upset and confused, Katie told her mother when she got home, and further investigation revealed the photographer had a string of convictions for child abuse.

By 16, she had been drawn into an abusive relationship with a boyfriend 12 years older who was violent and manipulative, flying into rages when anyone paid her too much attention.

To what extent these early experiences moulded Katie Price can, of course, only be speculated upon, although it seems safe to say that her childhood ended earlier than it should have.

Certainly, it seems no coincidence that it was around this time that she first started to toy with the idea of breast enhancement.

Katie, it seems, worked out at an early age that her precocious good looks - together with an enhanced, pneumatic figure - could prove a ticket to money and success.

Astonishingly, at just 16 she went to her local cosmetic surgery clinic and asked for a breast enlargement, only to be told she was too young.

Eventually, she had her first at the age of 18, and since then has had two more, taking her to a 32FF bra size.

Some have questioned whether this repeated desire for plastic surgery borders on body dysmorphia, the psychological disorder in which sufferers develop a distorted perception of their own bodies.

Others have suggested a simpler explanation: in a competitive glamour modelling market, Jordan is keenly aware that her over-inflated chest makes her - literally and metaphorically - stand out.

Nor did she spare any energy in her bid to become the glamour model supreme, for in her incarnation as Jordan, no behaviour, it seems, is too outrageous - from the explicit photographs and candid talk about her sexual preferences to a soap opera love-life.

Over the years, she has accumulated the necessary fast-moving series of relationships acted out in the pages of tabloid newspapers with, among others, singer Dane Bowers - thought by some to be the love of her life - and a high-profile relationship with footballer Dwight Yorke which resulted in the birth of her son Harvey.

In fact, Harvey's birth, and the subsequent discovery that he was blind, was the first time the public image of Jordan fractured, and the line between where she ended and Katie Price began rather blurred.

Having maintained her public persona throughout her pregnancy - she was pictured with alarming frequency smoking and drinking in nightclubs - Jordan went through bouts of self-recrimination about the impact of her behaviour on the health of her child, although doctors have since told her she cannot hold herself responsible.

Asked if she felt her behaviour was ill-matched to the mother of a needy newborn, she replied: 'My job is taking my clothes off and that's the way it's going to stay.

'I have a little boy to support and I want to give him the best I can. If people expect me to turn into an earth mother and start wearing Laura Ashley clothes then they're going to be disappointed.'

For Katie Price, then, being Jordan is a living - one that has enabled her to build up a considerable fortune. In the past year her wealth has enabled her to upgrade from her once modest detached property near Brighton to a £1 million mansion in the picturesque village of Maresfield, East Sussex.

In addition, she has two other properties in the same county, which she rents out. She owns a Bentley and a Range Rover and has set up her own limited company to control sales of T- shirts and calendars bearing her image - having cleverly retained the rights to her photographs to maximise revenue.

Those who have dealt with her describe her as a tough negotiator who lays out her financial demands from the start and aims high.

'If you won't give her what she wants, then she just instructs her agent to say the deal is off and walks away,' said one magazine insider. 'She's not scared to do that. She knows exactly what she's worth.'

And what she is worth adds up, it seems, to a great deal.

Her most lucrative earnings, aside from magazine deals and top- shelf photo- shoots, come from personal appearances, for which she can earn up to £25,000 a time merely for turning up to a specified pub or club, signing some autographs and wearing very little.

If there were any doubts about her negotiating skills, they could be dispelled after it emerged she had extracted a £100,000 fee for her appearance on I'm A Celebrity - more than four times that awarded to each of the other nine contestants.

Little wonder, then, that Katie Price controls Jordan zealously.

Equally revealing is the way she seems to put on Jordan like a mask, letting the personality evolve as the layers of makeup go on.

One fascinating insight into this transformation comes from a photographer who worked with her on a recent photo- shoot. 'When she first arrived she was Katie, just a down-to-earth girl with no makeup, chattering about the weather and her journey,' he said. 'We all really liked her.

'But as the make-up went on, you could literally see her transforming before our eyes. And the character that emerged - Jordan - was not a nice character. She became bossy and unsympathetic, and very controlling.'

This same Jordan, revealed the photographer, insisted on skimpy, sluttish clothes and equally sluttish poses. 'It was as if she couldn't do anything else once she'd become Jordan,' he said.

Her manager, Dave Read, also attests that his client is a 'very complex character'. 'You have Katie at one end of the scale and Jordan at the other,' he said. 'But in between there are all these different layers. She can be very moody. But Jordan is always packed away when Katie gets home. She doesn't exist in Sussex.'

It is here, it seems, that Jordan becomes a homebody who spends her time riding her three horses through the rolling countryside and playing with her baby son.

Contrary to rumour, she has become a well-liked member of the community since moving to Maresfield, and on New Year's Eve threw a huge fancy-dress party at her home to which she invited all her neighbours - who were greeted by their hostess dressed as a pumpkin in a large orange suit topped off with a green wig.

'People are so used to seeing me with my kit off I thought I'd do something a bit different,' she told her surprised guests.

It is a comical tableau and a startling contrast to the silicone-fuelled image that Jordan presents to the world.

Perhaps it is no surprise, either, that this duality makes it hard for Katie to hold down relationships.

'Every boyfriend at the beginning says they like my job, but a few months down the line the little jibes start slipping out,' she reflected recently. 'Towards the end they've always started to lose respect for me.'

It is a poignant admission, but one which is unlikely to make any difference to Jordan's pneumatic profile: for the time being, Jordan is a business - however unsavoury some may find her - and Katie Price is not going to close her down while profits are flooding in and demand for the product is high.

If there is any doubt about her intentions, then we need only refer to a telling scene that took place before Jordan, in her incarnation as 'TV personality', was taken into the Australian jungle for the start of filming for I'm A Celebrity.

While other contestants worried about their provisions or phoned home, she could be found leafing through the magazines in a newsagent near her hotel.

Asked what she was doing, she replied: 'I'm just checking out the competition.'

For now, she has little to worry about, particularly as her jungle stint seems set to lend an intriguing shade to her character that can only increase her short-term marketability.

As Katie Price knows only too well, no business can ever afford to be complacent. But one day it seems certain she will pack Jordan away for ever, and live on the fortune her alter ego has made her.