Who broke Britain? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which experts and writers debate the issues that concern them about modern Britain.

• Martin Lewis: the money-saving expert… who accidentally cost Britons billions
• The American woman who ripped the heart out of Cadbury
• The TV genius who turbocharged Trump – and accidentally wrecked Britain

Long before Gemma Collins or the Kardashians there was Katie Price.

For 30 years, Katie Price has not left our screens or the pages of the press. Three decades ago, the odd nip and tuck was done discreetly by the wealthy and no one talked about it. Price changed all that. This brazen beauty would flaunt her surgeries, arguably making British women question their own bodies, pushing them towards correcting anything and everything that made them feel less than body-perfect.

She first came to our attention in the mid-90s, at the tender age of 18 and going by the name Jordan, when she appeared on Page 3 of . These were different times. sold around four million copies a day and Page 3 calendars were shamelessly displayed in British homes and the workplace. Two years later she was banned from Page 3 for having a boob job.

As women, we are constantly told that big boobs are sexy and yet when we find a way of levelling the playing field via surgery, we are taken out of the game. Sadly, as much as I would like to blame men for this, all too often it is women in the media who collude in dictating the rules and perpetuating the game.

As Jordan, Price was a pneumatic, plastic, living, breathing sex doll. And at the same time, she monetised every image and every car crash love-story. No part of her life was kept private, every bit of it made money for her. She presented herself as the ultimate object of desire and yet, behind the scenes (filmed for her recent documentary Sky’s Nothing to Hide), she now says: “I definitely think I have body dysmorphia now… don’t let me look in the mirror… don’t like what I looked like, still don’t like what I look like. I just hate the way I look.”

Suggesting that behind the seemingly relentless ability to earn a living just by living, there perhaps lurks a darker, more thoughtful side to this doyenne of reality TV, she says “Through the years there’s a habitual kind of abuse from men against me, taking advantage of me, from a young age… and each time a trauma has happened I think it affected me.” 

So, is Katie Price a marionette or a master manipulator? Has she made British women feel a little more insecure about the way we look, or has she actually and inadvertently shown us how utterly pointless it all is?

One of the patterns of Katie Price’s very public life has been the yo-yo-ing from success to failure. It’s also what makes her so compelling to watch. She was the glamourous WAG dating Manchester United star Dwight Yorke. Before she gave birth to their son Harvey, who has complex disabilities, she had already been publicly dumped by Yorke. She managed to become the “boobs in your face nightclubber” whilst simultaneously being the “vulnerable single Mum”.

Her burgeoning career came just at the right time for reality TV. It was supercharged by her appearance on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. In the jungle, she was strong, funny, somewhat vulnerable and very sexy. 11 million of us tuned in to see the rebirth of Jordan as Katie Price and her blossoming relationship with 90s pop star Peter Andre. It was a version of the Disney dream of a girl finding a prince.

But this girl didn’t need rescuing. Her wedding made a reported £1.75m from a deal with a magazine for exclusive pictures. In the press she always exhibited a sense of control, but it came at great cost. She suffered  from post-natal depression, and did not always enjoy the circus. She spoke later about how difficult her wedding day had been.

Perhaps Katie Price’s life also serves as a reminder to women that the fairytale, the money and the fame don’t really feed the soul. That the superficial won’t make us feel better about ourselves. It’s Price’s honesty about what is going on behind the scenes during all the big moments in her life that means she gives this real-life lesson, and, personally, I believe she knows exactly what she is doing.

She has worked out that many women find truth and vulnerability compelling to watch. She is honest, but like many of us, also openly broken, insecure about the way she looks, keen to find a worthy life partner and has to make a crust. On the one hand, she gives us permission to do what we want, but at the same time she embodies the utter fruitlessness of a life lived with unhealed wounds.

She’s now peddling her latest face lift and her newest, most complex, dramatic and bizarre marriage yet – and yet we are still eating this stuff up. There is no doubt from her social media feed that a lot of women really dislike her. There is huge judgment of her, every aspect of her body, her parenting, her relationships. Everything is harshly criticised.

Katie Price certainly wanted to show the world she could have it all, but somewhere in the arc of the story the vision got lost. After multiple failed marriages and her financial challenges it also looks cruel. If anybody qualifies as a victim too, surely it is her.

Her life shows us that trading connection for the attention of the masses is meaningless, and that living life in service of the male gaze just amounts to disappointment. Perhaps she simply dared to show that Britain was always a bit broken.