WHAT a fortnight.
Over the past two weeks, I have been on the hunt for Lee Andrews – ably assisted by Katie Price, our man on the ground in Dubai, Sun readers… and literally thousands of social media followers.
The interest in the story is not like anything I can recall in 20 years of covering showbusiness.
To recap, it all kicked off on May 11th.
My investigation into Lee was published – a man whom several women had gone on record and accused of being a conman, largely thanks to excellent work by Bizarre’s Ellie Henman – and Lee rapidly went to ground.
Having spent two months befriending the fraudster – he was very charming and, absolutely, on a surface level, I really liked him – but it quickly became apparent his money-making ways were dubious.
They needed to be exposed. I hoped, in so doing, I hoped we might finally open love-loving Katie’s eyes to the chap she had married in haste.
His brave ex-girlfriend Alana Percival also gave a podcast confirming he was a man not to be trusted.
Within 24 hours of publication, Lee had cut off contact from his frantic wife. (A woman, let’s not forget, who had been left humiliated live on air during *that* infamous GMB sofa appearance).
Despite repeated enquiries from our reporter out there, UEA police authorities would not confirm his whereabouts.
There was seemingly no official record of him in prison, and the Foreign Office insisted they were supporting the family of a man detained. But would give no further information.
In the interim, several madcap theories were being circulated on both TikTok and Instagram by both Katie Price’s fans and her detractors.
I found myself, unexpectedly, at the centre of them.
She stood accused of staging a giant publicity stunt – one to garner attention for her forthcoming three-part documentary, and, bafflingly, I was accused of being “in on it too”.
So let me be clear. I am NOT in on anything.
As far as I know, and I have to believe her, Katie genuinely did not have a clue where her husband was. Indeed, she took to Instagram to deny prior claims by Lee’s dad that he was holed-up in jail.
She contacted me today in a WhatsApp, simply writing: “I have an update.”
Lee claims, slightly implausibly, he has been arrested for “spying”. I will eat my sun-hat if that is the case; at this stage, I do not believe a word that emerges from that man’s mouth. But, crucially, Katie still wants to believe in him, and help.
So why the interest in this story – one which went on to spawn an international manhunt and one, really, that only Katie Price would find herself embroiled in?
Well, she is a part of our fabric; love her or loathe her, she is an icon of British pop culture.
We have grown up with her as a nation, and seen first-hand her tumultuous string of wrong’uns (first husband Peter Andre notwithstanding, and perhaps her sweet, most recent ex-boyfriend, JJ Slater).
Katie is a woman who just wants to be loved.
Finally, she has found her missing husband. Perhaps now she can get the answers she so desperately needs.