Iconic 1990s pop superstar Peter Andre is originally from Harrow. Now not many of you will be aware of this, but we will take a look at his life before and after he left our borough in a retrospective look at one of the UK’s brightest talents to emerge from the decade of Britpop.
Peter was born in Harrow on 27 February 1973 to Greek-Cypriot parents. Attending Sudbury Primary School, young Peter and his siblings all went to the same school. At the age of 6, Peter and his family moved to Australia.
A talented singer and dancer from a young age, Peter pursued a career in the arts trialling for none other than Michael Jackson for his Bad tour in 1988 before finally finding his feet with a TV show called New Faces in 1989. The show was aired on GTV-9 Melbourne and was designed to earth out new and upcoming stars from across Australia.
In 1992, four years before his meteoric rise to success in the UK, Peter released his first single Gimme Little Sign, followed by the debut and self-titled album Peter Andre.
It wasn’t until four years later, when Peter was just 23 years old, that he had his huge success, something that Harrow Online readers will no doubt remember him most for, his huge hit Mysterious Girl which became a huge smash hit in both Australia and the UK. The star dominated the year with other hits such as Flava and he went on to sell over 580,000 albums and 1,000,000 singles in the UK alone.
Later in his career, and after his music began to become less of a focus, Peter Andre ventured into the world of television when he signed up to take part in I’m a Celebrity, Get me out of Here!. Reminded of Peter’s charm, and interest in the reality show romance that he and Katie Price shared in the jungle that year, Peter’s popularity boomed again as he signed up to have his own reality show ITV2 in 2004 called Katie and Peter.
Peter returned to Harrow in 2011 to perform at Harrow Arts Centre in Hatch End, a charity show he put on with his dance crew Ignite and part of his Here To Help television show.
The last time Peter paid a visit to Harrow, we had the opportunity to speak with him about how the borough has changed since his last visit.
