Someone stop Katona

Do you remember that German guy who answered an ad for a young man who wanted to be eaten, and then ate his own fried cock before being finished off? And then there was that whole legal battle because the guy who did it said it was euthanasia, not murder? Kerry Katona reminded me of him today.

And no, before you ask, I’m not saying that she should be helped to die. At the gym this lunchtime, I was watching MTV while on the elliptical trainer (despite its merits, there is simply no way of describing this object so that it sounds cool) and a trailer for her reality show Crazy In Love came on.

Now, I must admit, I love reality TV. Tonight is my sort-of-sister-in-law’s sort-of-hen-do (don’t ask) and I’m considering sneaking off when they all get drunk so I can go home and watch corporate morons shame themselves on The Apprentice. Ordinarily, though I’d never actually watch Crazy In Love, the show about Katona and husband Mark Croft, I do find myself glued to the snippets shown on MTV ad breaks. Mostly the trailers just show them yelling at each other; she has also been criticised for smoking and drinking on the show while pregnant. Still, I find the ads very enjoyable, like a sort of cross between Eastenders and The Muppets.

But even I draw the line at watching people give birth. There Katona is, wailing in a hospital bed while her husband makes unhelpful comments. Later, the newborn chavlet is displayed, mewling, in a blanket. I had a heart rate of 173, but reader, it sank when I thought of the likely fate of that child. If your mum and dad are prepared to use your actual birth as an opportunity to make tits out of themselves, you are well and truly fucked.

Remembering German Fried Cock guy, then, I wondered if perhaps some sort of legal intervention could be made. The killer was eventually convicted of murder – the rationale being, if you go along with the wishes of someone who is truly unhinged, you are culpable. Although Katona is doubtless keen to get the money and publicity a reality show offers, the incoherent, at times distressed woman shown on TV doesn’t appear to be a great judge of what’s good for herself. While the show’s title and publicity shots (of the pair in a straitjacket) are supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, she has been in and out of rehab, and clearly has some mental health issues which probably shouldn’t be made light of.

I’m not saying the producers of Crazy In Love are criminally liable. It’s even rumoured that the team, who in almost any other context would be editing all the most excruciating bits together, have advised Katona to tone her antics down, to remember that she is on TV. Watching her continue in her quest to embarrass herself, though, you wonder if she’s capable of making that call. An obvious person who could get her out of there is her publicist, Max Clifford. But he too seems to have been drawn into the circus – the new baby is, in his honour, named Maxwell.