Celebrity news: Katie Price confirms split from Alex Reid

The celebrity gossip columns had been predicting it for some time, but it seems the whirlwind reality romance that was Katie Price and Alex Reid has finally come to a well-publicised end.



After much press speculation about their 11-month marriage, Price was the one who broke the news to the world via a statement that confirmed the rumours that the pair were to separate. The model and businesswoman discussed some of the stories that had featured in the celebrity news pages over recent weeks and suggested that she may have tied the knot a little too soon after her high profile divorce from Peter Andre.



The statement said: "Alex and I have had a number of difficulties over the past few months. I accept that these were in part caused by my marrying too quickly - we all make mistakes and this was one.” It continued: "However, Alex changed from the man I fell in love with and some of his behaviour became difficult for me to understand and caused issues."



Price concluded by saying that newspaper reports that Reid himself had been refusing to leave the family home were true and that he knew it was “the right thing” for both herself and her children for them to separate. "My children are my absolute priority in this and they are being shielded from what is happening."

Of course, while the celebrity gossip pages will be kept busy with intricate details of the divorce for months to come, this is highly unlikely to be as high a profile split as there have been in the past. While the pair are certainly rich and famous enough to argue about more glamorous things than who gets the toaster, any settlement is unlikely to meet the heady heights of other star splits of recent years.



In April 2007, Forbes Magazine cited the divorce of NBA star Michael Jordan from his wife Juanita as the most expensive celebrity split in history after the total amount involved was expected to have exceeded $150 million. Following this, other articles have suggested the final figure was closer to $170 million, adding that Juanita would also get the couple’s seven-acre Chicago estate and custody of their three children Jeffrey Michael, Marcus James and Jasmine Mickael.



Other multi-million dollar divorces to have proved costly to stars include Neil Diamond and Marcia Murphey (estimated to have come in at around $150m), Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren ($100m) and Paul McCartney and Heather Mills ($48.6m).