Jenice Armstrong: Basking in Kendra's 15 minutes: Fans weep as the 'star' signs her new book

KENDRA Wilkinson knows better than to take herself too seriously.

But that message wasn't communicated to her fans, some of whom traveled from Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., to Rittenhouse Square last week just to ogle the blonde bombshell of a reality-TV show and get an autographed copy of her new book, Being Kendra: Cribs, Cocktails & Getting My Sexy Back (It Books, $24.99).

I watched as fans literally shook in their pumps as they approached the table at Barnes & Noble where Wilkinson was signing books. There were tears, as well as out-and-out sobbing. Mothers held up infants as for Wilkinson to bless. A 21-year-old confessed that she'd named the toddler in her arms after the former stripper after watching an episode of her reality-TV show on E!, "Kendra."

One middle-aged man called out, "You were the only thing on my bucket list."

From the way some folks waited in line, you'd have thought first lady Michelle Obama was doing the book-signing, not a former Playboy bunny-turned-reality-TV star - with a sex tape. I take that back, because the first person to come up to Wilkinson was a 13-year-old from Burlington Township, N.J., who proceeded to do a vigorous series of pelvic thrusts in her best imitation of the reality star's signature booty shake. On the sex tape, Wilkinson can be seen butt-naked performing a similar move with her high-school boyfriend.

"You do it better than I do," Wilkinson said, beaming at the girl.

Her mother smiled proudly.

I shook my head.

I know this is America, where it doesn't matter how you get rich and famous, just that you do, but I was appalled to realize that Wilkinson has become a role model for the teeny-bopper set and, apparently, their mothers, who pulled their girls out of school just to meet their TV heroine in the flesh. One woman let both her daughter and son skip class so that they could be there.

As you surely know, Wilkinson, now 26, was one of Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner's three girlfriends on his show "The Girls Next Door." Her eponymous spin-off also features her husband, former Eagles player Hank Baskett. The couple have a nearly 2-year-old son, Hank Jr., whom the touring Wilkinson had visited with via Skype earlier that day.

"It's very hard," said Wilkinson, who wore jeans and the shoe of the season - platforms with the requisite sky-high skinny heels. "It is a tease. It breaks my heart when I have to say goodbye, but you know I have to do what I have to do. This economy ain't no joke. You have to work."

The monotony of watching so many young women, some wearing accessories with Playboy-bunny emblems on them, was broken up when Charles Johnson got his chance for an audience with the Sexy One. "I'm the concierge at the Residences at Two Liberty [Place, where Wilkinson and Baskett lived when he was an Eagle], and she gave me her stripper pole and subsequently my dating life has improved exponentially," Johnson said. "I am dating; I'm having a great time. So, she's been good to me."

At one point, Wilkinson looked up and asked, "Are the Alps in Switzerland?"

I have no idea where that came from.

Being Kendra, by the way, opens with her description of having sex with her husband on a staircase as the steps dug into her back. Later, she writes, "Hank loves it when I wear little booty exercise shorts . . .. Even in bed he loves me wearing a sports bra with little booty shorts on and my socks pulled up high."

Too bad Baskett didn't teach Wilkinson the meaning of TMI, as in too much information. But then again, Miss Sexpot is shooting for another New York Times best-seller. (Her first was 2010's Sliding Into Home.)

She also describes having sex on a Jet Ski: "Public sex when no one else is watching is awesome."

Wilkinson dishes out lots of this sort of sexy advice in her new book, such as, "You have to visualize yourself everywhere in your house and say, can I have sex there? On the toilet, in the closet, on a table, in the shower, in the bath. Every place will be a new experience. There are so many different angles that you could be reaching, depending on where you are sitting or how you are positioned, and it feels so much better. Deeper, longer, harder - you get so much more out of sex not being in bed."

The counter in their kitchen is a favorite, ahem, rendezvous spot for the couple.

But you can get only so annoyed at Wilkinson, as she's clearly trying to extend her 15 minutes of fame for as long as she can, even if it means speaking out of the bedroom, as the saying goes, and dealing with the crazy headlines that follow.

She told me: "It's a part of the business. I signed up for this. You know, my life is in the spotlight. And it's not a fake life. It's not an actress life. It's a reality star's life. It's Kendra's life. You know what I'm saying? I signed up for it.

"You kind of have to laugh at it and move on . . . . We actually get the magazines. We get them to cut out baby Hank's picture so we can put it in his albums. But I don't really look at the headlines. I look at baby Hank and that's it."

Any more surprises, sex tapes or whatever? I asked.

"We have the show still. We have season 4 still going. You know we have our lives. We have surprises that pop up every day . . . you won't be getting away from us too soon."

That should be reassuring to all those moms.