Free Love, Lipstick and Lies by Katie Price

said than done in Hollywood as everyone else is trying to do just that. This was a big red-carpet event, FFS! And I wanted to look the business. I’d hated the dress I’d worn the previous year to the same party: an electric blue sequined gown decorated with two huge corsages. Everyone else had loved it but I didn’t think it was me at all and had felt uncomfortable in it all night. It felt too sophisticated and grown-up. Maybe when I’m older I’ll appreciate it. Put it this way, it’s the kind of dress my mum loves to see me in. But I reckon I’ve still got it , and while I have … well, I’m going to flaunt it. I decided I needed a dress with the wow factor.
    As we were in LA that shouldn’t be too difficult, I thought. During Oscars week they have these events called ‘gifting suites’, where designers display their dresses and accessories for celebrities to borrow. I went looking with a stylist I knew and between us we founda dress that I liked. It was a black sequined halterneck, showing off plenty of cleavage, with a short puffball-style skirt so my legs were out too. That so-called style ‘rule’ where you show either cleavage or legs … please , it’s not for me. I needed the dress to do most of the work as I was not at all happy about my hair, which still hadn’t recovered from a botched bleach job in December. I had gone from brunette to blonde and had new extensions that cost me a fortune, plus I had flown out to LA to have it done. But back in the UK, to my horror, my hair began breaking and the extensions pulled it out from the root. It had cost me another fortune to rectify the damage, and it took ages for the remaining hair to recover. In the meantime I had these honey-brown extensions that I didn’t like, although everyone else thought they looked fine.
    But apart from the hair, I felt I was good to hit the red carpet. I’d had my teeth polished, to achieve the ultimate Hollywood smile; I was tanned and I’d had Botox. On my face that is – I hadn’t gone to the extreme of having it injected into my armpits to stop any sweating, as apparently so many actors do before they hit the red carpet. Hold the front page! Shock, horror … leading actress shows off sweat rings as she waves to the crowd. Actually it probably would make the front page. When Julia Roberts revealed a less than fuzz-free armpit at a film premiere the tabloids went mental.
    Day four of our whirlwind trip saw Gary and me getting ready for the Oscars party. This would be thethird year I’d been to Elton’s extravaganza. The first time I had gone with Pete. It hadn’t been a good experience. We weren’t getting on well, and he had his eye on me all night, making sure I didn’t have anything to drink. It wasn’t as if I was going to get wasted and make a show of myself. I simply wanted a glass of champagne, like every other person there … but, oh, no, that wasn’t good enough for Pete, who always hated me having anything to drink and always had a go at me if I did. Now that was something I didn’t miss from my first marriage … The second year I went on my own and met up with my good friend Tanya. To be honest, though, I couldn’t wait to leave. I went back to the hotel, took off the blue dress and put on my trackies to order room service of chips and hot chocolate. Bliss. This time it was going to be Gary and me, partners in crime. Or, as he joked, a pair of Californian twins with our ‘blonde hair, black outfits, white teeth and orange tans’.
    ‘Cheeky bastard!’ I shot back, laughing. ‘You can speak for yourself with the orange part. I’m a perfect bronze … it’s you who’s overdone it.’
    ‘Pot – kettle,’ muttered Gary.
    I’ve been up countless red carpets but I still get nervous beforehand. So does Gary. In fact, we were both panicking and winding ourselves up as we were driven to the Pacific Design Center on Melrose Avenue, where the party was being held. Would we get in once we had