Peter Andre has opened up about the abuse he suffered at the beginning of his career where men would should offensive words at him and even threaten to kill him.
The 48-year-old father-of-four has a long and illustrious career which stretches back to the early 1990s when he burst onto the music scenes with songs Drive Me Crazy and Gimme Little Sign – as well as his smash hit Mysterious Girl.
But while Pete was riding high in the music charts, he was suffering something of a low in his real life as jealous men would target him if they saw him walking down the street.
Admitting he was perhaps a little arrogant at the time, and acknowledging that it wasn’t commonplace for a man to wander around the streets topless in the early ‘90s, Peter paints a traumatic picture of his early career years.
He told The Guardian: “The 90s were very image-based and no one knew me as a person, so I used to walk down the street and get called a wanker.
“Men would shout at me: ‘Who the f**k do you think you are? If you look at my girl, I’ll kill you.’ I don’t hold any grudges because I understand how it must have looked at the time: who is this guy walking around with his shirt off?
“Thankfully, as the years have gone on I’ve become a family man and do more interviews; people can now see that I’m not actually a little s**t.”
Getting candid about his past, Peter goes on to admit that he may have given off the wrong impression early on in his career.
He continued: “At the peak of my pop powers I was polite to people, but I think I had a sense of arrogance that I now regret. I can kind of see how it happened: I was No 1 and the hysteria from the fans was crazy.
“I went from being a shy kid to having this huge confidence, touring the world and travelling to incredible places. We shot the video for Mysterious Girl on the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand; we arrived, set up the speakers, blasted out the song and shot footage of the local people dancing.
“I ended up going out with the girl in the video – a Swiss Thai model called Champagne X, who was a big star at the time – for a year and a half. She was such a sweet person, and it was only distance that made us break up.”
Peter’s career has continued in the years since the 1990s, with his most recent album, White Christmas, released in 2015 – while another album titled Come Fly With Me released that same year surprised many by reaching number 5 in the charts.
He reinvented himself as a reality star in 2004 when he appeared on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! – where he met Katie Price.
They pair embarked on a doomed romance which saw them marry in 2005, welcome two children together, but ultimately divorce in 2009 – with Katie still bitterly wishing she was with him.
The pair did, however, star in a string of reality shows together during the glory days of their marriage – but continue to drag each other into headlines thanks to their strained post-divorce friendship.
