Jordan is best known for her ample assets, footballer boyfriends and drunken escapades in skimpy outfits.

At 23, she is a media phenomenon derided by women but lusted after by men.

When Jordan was just 17-year-old Katie Price, her chest size, bank account and status were considerably smaller.

But her ambition was just as colossal.

Jacqui Andrews, 32, from Portslade, remembers Katie as the receptionist at Gemini Business Centre in Hove who wore skirts and 6in plastic heels to work.

Not surprisingly, Katie was always surrounded by men keen to find an excuse to get away from their desks and chat up the curvy office temptress.

Jacqui recalled how Katie worked part-time, spending her afternoon stints at the centre "filing her nails, twiddling her hair and reading the newspaper". Jacqui thinks she was bored with her day job and longed to have a taste of the celebrity lifestyle.

Enter Jacqui, who worked in marketing for Sabre Telecommunications, which was based in the business centre. She had been a fashion model and worked in the booking department of a modelling agency.

Jacqui had noticed Katie because of her outrageously short skirts but only struck up a conversation with her when she was introduced by their mutual friend, Bonnie Andrews. Jacqui immediately saw something special in Katie and suggested she become a model.

She said: "Katie obviously wanted to go somewhere. She wore plastic high heels to the office and a tiny skirt. I said to her she should become a model and she said 'Do you think so?'

"I said she was too short to be a fashion model but if she didn't mind taking her top off she could make is as a glamour model. She had a very ballsy personality and you couldn't ignore her. I thought she was a bimbo when I first met her but she does have a raw intelligence.

"She pretends to be stupid because life's easier if you're stupid. The reps at work loved her. There were many men after her. She knew it and used it to get what she wanted.

"Nobody objected to the clothes she wore to work, although there was some bitchiness among the women. She had no female friends. She wasn't a slapper. She had a long-term boyfriend at the time but she was a flirt."

Jacqui was determined to help her secure a modelling contract and knew she needed a portfolio of photographs.

One day Jacqui brought a camera into work and took a few snaps of Katie around the office.

Within days, Jacqui had taken the pictures that were to make Katie a household name. She took her to Hove seafront with mutual friend Bonnie and tried to make Katie look as tasteful as possible with her top off as she snapped away.

Jacqui said: "She was only comfortable doing them because I was a female photographer. She was very mistrustful of male photographers.

"She had perfect skin and beautiful hair. She never used to wear make-up and only went to the gym occasionally. Her chest was quite small then."

Armed with the photographs, Jacqui accompanied Katie to a model agency in London and she was signed up on the spot.

A few weeks later her first topless pictures appeared in The Sun.

That day in London was the last time Jacqui saw Katie. She paid for Katie's train fare there but never saw that again either.

Jacqui has been left with a bitter taste in her mouth by the whole experience. Far from being a bimbo, Jacqui began to realise Katie was shrewd. She even demanded the negatives back of those early pictures Jacqui had taken.

Jacqui said: "I never even received a thank-you for taking her to London. She knew what she wanted. I could see her angle and she used me to her advantage.

"She uses whatever she can to get where she wants to go. I think she had been wanting someone to tell her what to do for ages before I helped her.

"She just wanted reactions out of people the whole time.

"I think it's very sad seeing her now. She is going to destroy herself. She's out of control. She seems to have become a caricature of herself. She had to be famous because she was hungry for it."