Katie Wright has quit 'The Only Way is Essex'.
Katie Wright
The 25-year-old reality TV star has decided to take a "long break" from the ITVBe show in order to focus on her new business ventures and forthcoming bikini range.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper, she said: "I am taking a long break from the show to focus on my new business ventures and an exciting bikini range."
Katie's decision to turn her back on the programme following just two years in front of the cameras comes just weeks after it emerged that she had struck up a relationship with former professional footballer Rio Ferdinand.
The blonde beauty had agreed to keep her romance with the 38-year-old hunk under wraps, but the cat was let out of the bag when her co-star James 'Lockie' Lock revealed that the news of the couple came as a huge "shock" to the entire ITVBe cast.
The loose-lipped hunk said at the time: "Kate and Rio were a bit of a shock to the system for everyone. It came out of nowhere."
Although the 30-year-old heartthrob wishes the pair all the best, he has admitted his loyalties will always lie with Kate's ex-boyfriend Dan Edgar, whom she split from last year on the show, because he's crushed by her dating revelation.
He explained: "My loyalties are with Dan. I'm on side with him. He has a lot of love for Kate and would have liked the idea of getting her back but then Kate met Rio in Dubai so he's been left in the lurch."
It's not known when the beauty met the former sportsman - who has three kids; Lorenz, 10, Tate, eight, and Tia, six, with his late wife Rebecca Ellison - but she was last in Dubai at the beginning of January when she jetted off on a girls' holiday with her close friend Danielle Armstrong to get away from men.
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