The 19-year-old wannabe had just beaten 10,000 others to be crowned winner of Katie’s reality TV show, aimed at finding Britain’s hottest young model.
The prize included a modelling contract, mentoring from Katie, a front page on OK! magazine, the keys to a Range Rover like Katie’s for a year and a luxury holiday in the Maldives.
Little wonder Amy was smiling so happily as the cameras captured mentor and protege in identical outfits. But now, just a few weeks later, her joy has turned to bitterness. In an exclusive interview, Amy says winning Sky Living’s Signed By Katie has turned her life upside down... for the worse.
She claims that after the TV show flopped badly – one episode won just 130,000 viewers – many of the promises were broken.
And, despite Katie’s management team insisting that they were working tirelessly to make her famous Amy has now refused to sign a contract with the star’s modelling company.
That snub has left Katie, 33, fuming and she’s vowed never to work with Amy again, saying people think she’s an “arrogant, stuck-up fake”.
“I never expected overnight fame,” Amy said yesterday. “But I don’t believe the promises from Katie or her team were kept.
“I gave up my job, was encouraged to turn down a place at university and had to put my life on hold.”
During filming of the show, Katie pledged: “The winner will get a fast-track ticket to stardom. They’ll get a modelling contract, calendars, foreign trips and red-carpet access.”
When Katie appeared with Amy in TV interviews, she said: “She’s got the look, the body, everything... she’ll have her own perfume, her own TV show. In most of these shows the judges just walk away. But with this I’m in their lives and I’m managing them.”
However, since the winning show was screened last November, Amy says she’s had hardly any mentoring, the modelling jobs haven’t properly materialised and the matching Range Rover isn’t possible because she doesn’t have the £10,000 needed to insure it. And when she rang up about the holiday to the Maldives it had suddenly turned into a trip to Marbella. Heartbroken Amy says the experience has soured her dreams of being a model, which started when she was crowned Miss Bristol at the age of 15.
Last June she was busy making plans to go to Cardiff University to read media studies after getting two As and a B in her A-levels.
But her plans changed one afternoon as she left work at a clothing store in Bristol. “A guy tapped my shoulder and said they were holding auditions for a new show by Katie Price,” she says.
“It sounded fantastic. I admired Kate. I’d read her book about how she cared for her disabled son Harvey. My brother is severely handicapped too so I had empathy for her.” Amy wowed the judges at her audition and was eventually picked for the final dozen. She moved to a house in London with the 11 other hopefuls.
“I quit my job, gave up my university place and dropped out of Miss England,” she says. “I put life on hold, but the show promised to change my future.”
Katie Price and Amy Willerton in matching outfitsSplash
PARTYING
