Peter Andre's body image struggles
Peter Andre refuses to take his shirt off in public due to "psychological issues" stemming back to an unflattering paparazzi photo.
Peter Andre refuses to take his shirt off in public due to "psychological issues".
The 50-year-old singer was known for his toned physique in his pop star hey-day, but there was a time in his 30s when he "didn't care about training" and gained over 40lbs from eating "all day, every day", but a candid photo taken while he was on holiday left him plagued with insecurities.
He told Britain's OK! magazine: “I was alone on a beach in the Bahamas, so I took my shirt off and went in the water. The sea was really rough and when I came out I remember I was gasping. There was some paparazzi photographer in the trees and he must have caught me breathing out.
“The photo got sent all around the world and it was the first time people had seen me like that since the early days. I remember the headlines – ‘Andre piles on the pack’.
"People who were heavier than me might have thought, ‘But he looks alright’, but in my mind I looked like Brendan Fraser in 'The Whale'. We never see what other people see.
“Now, I’ve got this psychological link to something and it’s stopping me just freely walking around the beach – I just won’t do it. It’s ridiculous.”
The 'Mysterious Girl' hitmaker then embarked on a string of "fad diets" to try and keep his weight in check.
He added: “After that time on the beach, I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something’ and I started on all the fad diets – low carbs, no fats etc and you know what? For about five years, I was completely depressed because food was the one thing that I loved.”
Though he's stopped yo-yo dieting now, Peter recalled how "terrible" he felt during his 20s and unable to cope with the demands of his busy schedule because of his obsession with his appearance.
He said: "By my twenties I was very into clean eating. I was eating raw eggs in a milkshake with protein powders for breakfast. No oil, no butter, no fat.
"I was looking amazing but feeling terrible. As work schedules were getting crazy, I was getting sick every couple of weeks and cancelling shows.
"I had no body fat. My dad said to me, ‘You have to start eating’ and I’d say, ‘No, I’ve created this image. Now I’ve got to stay this way.’
"“I remember biting into a McDonald’s burger on a Saturday night and it felt like I was hallucinating. I’d think to myself, ‘You’re a bad boy. You need to go and exercise so hard’ – and that’s not healthy."
But these days, the 'Flava' hitmaker is more accepting that his physique has changed - but he admitted he's still working on the fact "nobody really cares" about that.
He said: " People will always compare me to how I looked back then. Even though I look and feel good, I don’t look exactly the same. The bit I have to work on is that, in fact, nobody really cares.”
