Peter Andre has revealed the pearls of wisdom he gave to his kids after reluctantly agreeing they could use social media.
The 50-year-old Australian singer and dad-of-four said he found he was fighting a losing battle in trying to keep his eldest children Junior, 17, and Princess, 15, who are a budding singer and influencer respectively, away from TikTok, Instagram and the like.
He does have one rule which he tries to impose however – never read any of the negative comments.
Speaking to the Standard at the opening of the Jorja Emerson Centre in Paddington, he said: “Someone said to me ‘well, if you’re concerned about your kids on social media take them off it,’ and I said ‘good luck trying!’”
“I remember when Princess wasn’t allowed to have Instagram, she was like ‘why?’ And I said ‘because you’re too young’. Junior would say ‘well at lunch time she was sitting there with her friends looking on Instagram’. Then she’d go ‘why are you telling on me?’ But I thought this is the point, so what we need to do is put safe guarding measures for them while they are on because they are going to go on it whether we like it or not,” the Flava hit-maker continued.
“I think rather than forcing them to do something that they are going to inevitably do and probably rebel against you, it’s important that we find ways not kind of focusing on negativity, trying to block anything negative. I say to them if you ever read anything, even the first word that’s negative, get rid of it; don’t even read it. Because otherwise you’ll go mad.”
Andre performed an electric private set with multi-instrumentalist Mo Pleasure for a select number of guests who were also given the chance to tour the state-of-the-art mental health clinic, which provides life-changing services for issues including ADHD and autism.
Among the attendees was health and nutrition expert Gillian McKeith who looked to be in her element when Andre pulled her up on the stage while performing his classic track Mysterious Girl.
