Chris Hughes wouldn’t have done ‘Loose Women’ today (29.09.17) if Katie Price was on the panel.
The ‘Love Island’ hunk has been locked in a bitter row with the 39-year-old former glamour model after he published a series of "flirty" text messages that she allegedly sent him, but it looks like he’s still struggling to get his head around the situation as he told producers of the lunchtime show that he wouldn’t do the episode if she was there.
A source told The Sun Online: "Chris outright refused to go on the show if Katie was there. To him, it’s not hiding, it’s just avoiding unnecessary aggravation.
"He just wants to focus on promoting the new show with Kem. They [him and Katie] got on well initially but now it’ll be too awkward. He knows it wouldn’t be great television so asked nicely if she could not be on."
The 22-year-old heartthrob fell out with Katie after he claimed the blonde bombshell had been sending him the cheeky messages after admitting she found him attractive during his time on the ITV2 reality show.
And after Katie – who recently split from husband Kieran Hayler – took to Twitter to claim "no flirty texts" were sent to the hunk, Chris fired back with screenshots of the unanswered WhatsApp messages.
In the messages, Katie urged Chris to "be careful" of people who are interested in exploiting him, and even told him to let her know if he would rather she didn’t contact him.
She wrote: "Hey Chris I got your number from a mutual friend I loved meeting you the other day and would love to go shooting if offer still there ! I don’t think your getting my messages are you? I think they are getting deleted I’m not here to cause trouble at all ! Yes you know I like you ! And here for any advice too ! You will just get people wanting to make money out of you so just try be careful ! Hope to hear from you and if you don’t want me to tex or be in Touch I’d rather you tell me xxx (sic)"
After Chris failed to respond to her message, Katie sent a further message some time later, insisting she’s "not after" him.
The message read: "Hey don’t worry I’m not after you it was a faze lol but you on a club PA ? I am too and it’s sooo late where you? I’m in Darlington (sic)"