I’ve been a showbiz journalist since 2021 – meaning I’ve been digging into Katie Price’s scandals for the last five or so years. In that time, she got engaged and then split from Carl Woods, teased pregnancy announcements that went nowhere, faced bankruptcy and lost a string of pets. But no chapter in Katie’s life has been so bizarre as her current predicament: her missing husband Lee Andrews.

The pair met earlier this year and tied the knot after just two weeks, which to me is baffling enough in itself. Since then, internet sleuths have been on the case. Lee’s Instagram photos have been debunked as AI images based on Hollywood stars like Chris Hemsworth. Some fans have suggested he was never even in the UK despite posting a string of snaps ‘proving’ he’d travelled to London – which were also fake.

Lee claims to be a billionaire, but his scams have come to light – The Sun journalist Clemmie Moodie was conned into an “investment opportunity” by Lee and rinsed of £1,000 before he cut off contact with her altogether.

Allegedly an established conman, Lee – who lives in Dubai – reportedly disappeared after failing to land in the UK for a Good Morning Britain interview with Katie. After publicly fuming at him for standing her up, Katie was on social media hours later claiming her beau had been kidnapped.

At first, my mind jumped to the obvious conclusion – Katie was trying to save face and give herself and Lee an excuse. But when I heard the Foreign Office and even Interpol were involved, things got even more confusing. Lee was seen active on Facebook Messenger, and has reportedly been able to contact Katie even tied up in the back of a van – so it all screams ‘hoax’ to me/

But throughout all of this, the one thing that really doesn’t add up in my mind is Katie’s attitude to the whole thing. If it’s a publicity stunt – which she denies – I’d at least expect her acting to be better.

In one video, Katie claimed she was having “sleepless nights” caused by seeing her husband on FaceTime with his hands bound and a hood over his head. The solution to her worrying symptom? CBD oil, obviously, which she was coincidentally being paid to promote.

Then you have Apprentice star Luisa Zissman flying out to Dubai (first-class, of course) to “search” for Lee. Luisa has clearly been tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing, joking she would head for random warehouses and vans and call Lee’s name “in the hopes he’ll come to me”.

If Katie truly was worried about her hubby, she’d be offended by this, no?

Well… no. Katie instead reposted some of Luisa’s videos to her own Instagram account with a string of heart emojis. Either she can’t detect sarcasm, or she finds the whole thing just as funny as Luisa does.

Today, a week after her husband went missing, Katie declared she is “giving up the search”, shrugging: “There’s nothing more I can do.

“I’m not gonna talk about it anymore, I’m just staying quiet because it’s getting ridiculous now, people just taking the p**s out of everything.” Katie, meanwhile, is “getting on with her life”.

So my biggest question is not about Lee Andrews at all. My biggest question is – who is Katie Price? Is she really as vapid as she’s currently making out, drawn in by yet another bad boy? Or is she, as I’ve always strongly suspected, a lot smarter than people give her credit for, and pulling strings to keep her name in the press in the wake of financial struggles?

Perhaps in a few days I’ll be eating my words, and Lee will be discovered tied up in a “black site” somewhere in Dubai. Personally? I just don’t see it.