Katie Price has rejected claims that the search for her missing husband, Lee Andrews, is a 'publicity stunt,' insisting in a video posted on Tuesday, 19 May, that his disappearance in Dubai is 'real' and has been reported to authorities in both the UK and the United Arab Emirates.
Concern over Andrews' whereabouts began to build late last week, after the former Celebrity Big Brother winner told followers she had not heard from her husband, based in Dubai, for several days.
Price, who has documented much of her private life in public for more than two decades, started posting increasingly anxious updates about Andrews' apparent disappearance, prompting a rush of online speculation and, inevitably, suspicion.
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Katie Price Confronts 'Publicity Stunt' Claims Over Missing Lee Andrews
The suspicion was familiar and, in some corners of social media, almost reflexive. As the posts were shared and dissected, some users questioned whether the updates about Lee Andrews were being staged to generate attention for Katie Price. It was this narrative that finally pushed her to respond at length on YouTube.
'I want to make it clear again everyone: This is not a publicity stunt. This is real, and anyone who thinks that I'm part of this is disgusting,' she said, visibly angry at having to defend herself while also describing an unfolding missing person case.
The reality star said she has not heard from Andrews, and neither has his family. According to Price, there has been no contact with him at all, despite repeated efforts by relatives on both sides.
'None of his family has heard anything from Lee. His dad's out in Dubai has heard nothing, and the rest of his family's in the UK, and obviously me,' she explained. 'We have reported him to the British embassy as a missing person; he's been reported in Dubai as a missing person. I just don't know what to say.'
It is an oddly modern kind of nightmare. A man apparently vanishes overseas, and the first serious attempt to piece together what happened plays out not in a police briefing room but on Instagram and YouTube, with strangers weighing in from behind their phones.
Last FaceTime Call And Growing Fears Around Missing Lee Andrews
Price has given a detailed account of the last time she says she saw her husband on screen. In an update shared on 16 May, she claimed Andrews had been travelling towards a border area near Dubai and had contacted her in a highly distressing video call.
'He had a hood on and he said 'I've just been captured, arrested,' or whatever. I can't remember the exact word he said, but he had ties around his hand, not handcuffs, and a hood, and he said, 'Look, they're coming back for me. They're coming back for me.' That is the last FaceTime call I had with him. And then his phone went dead at 10:03,' she recalled.
None of that sequence has been independently verified. At this stage, there is no public confirmation from Dubai police, the British embassy or any other official body about Andrews' status, and no documentation of the incident Price describes has been released.
A source described as close to Price told The Sun on 17 May that 'Lee is officially a missing person now... Katie is in constant contact with his family and is desperately worried.'
The same insider pushed back against the online rumours, saying she was 'mortified' by people 'calling it a stunt and that she must be in on it, but she's absolutely not.'
Price herself has said she and Andrews' relatives have contacted several official channels in an effort to track him down, including the British embassy and Dubai's Criminal Investigation Department. She said none of the agencies contacted had been able to locate him.
'He's definitely a missing person now. I don't know if he's been kidnapped. We don't know what's going on,' she said in one update.
'So now no one can find him in any prison, police station, anything, anywhere in Dubai. The police just can't find any record of it. So now we're wondering if he's been kidnapped.'
It is a stark escalation, even couched as speculation. So far, there has been no independent confirmation of any kidnapping investigation. With no official statement from police in Dubai or from British consular staff about Andrews, much of what is publicly known rests on Price's account of events and on an unnamed source speaking to the tabloid.
That imbalance is precisely why the accusations of fakery sting so much. Price has long blurred the gap between private crisis and public narrative, monetising access to her life while also insisting on being taken seriously when something goes badly wrong.
Now she is asking an often cynical audience to believe that, this time, the drama is not part of the show. Until authorities speak on the record or new evidence emerges, the story of missing Lee Andrews remains defined by absence: of a person, of verifiable detail and of trust between a celebrity and the online crowd watching her unravel.
