PETER ANDRE MAN ON A MISSION

AFTER MORE THAN 20 YEARS AWAY, THE SINGER IS COMING HOME TO AUSTRALIA - AND HE'S GOT BIG PLANS!

- Naomi Toy

Just a hint of an Aussie accent is all that can be heard in Peter Andre’s voice as he chats over Zoom with WHO from his London home. But the pull to return to the country in which he was raised and launched his music career is only getting stronger. “The time has come,” Andre, 50, says in the days before jumping on a plane back to Australia. “Something is telling me to start going back, I can’t explain it.”

It’s been over 30 years since Andre, a New Faces discovery at the age of 16, released his first smash hit ‘Gimme Little Sign’. The cover of the 1967 soul song spent 31 weeks in the charts, peaking at No. 3, and earned him an ARIA award for highest-selling Australian single of the year.

The British-born son of Greek-Cypriot parents, who moved to Australia when he was 6, had Molly Meldrum in his corner, a six-pack (or possibly an eight-pack) that drove fans wild and an unshakeable selfbelief that he would be a star. He headed to the UK in the mid ’90s and in 1996 released the album Natural with the hit single ‘Mysterious Girl’.

He became a massive star, selling out stadiums across the UK, and was a constant in the British tabloids, particularly after a trip to the jungle in 2004 for I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! where he met and fell for model Katie Price. They became the ultimate celebrity couple, marrying in a lavish ceremony in September 2005 at Highclere Castle and went on to have two children together – Junior, now 18 and Princess, 16. While the marriage ended acrimoniously in 2009, Andre never made his way back to Australia.