Pete is proposing a perfect 2014 after popping the question.
As anyone who has spent time in his company, or watched his ITV2 reality series My Life, will tell you, Peter Andre is one of life’s positive people. But this time last year he was struggling to stay optimistic.
“I really wasn’t happy about turning 40,” the pop singer and TV presenter told me. “I was really having trouble seeing the ‘4-0’ written down and I phoned my sister, Debbie, who is 41, and asked how long it took her to come to terms with it.
“She said: ‘A year’, by which time, of course, she was 41.”
Of greater significance to his mood was Peter’s grief for his elder brother Andrew, who lost his battle against kidney cancer in December 2012.
“It was a really difficult time,” he recalled.
But, over 12 months on, he is able to smile again. He became engaged to his girlfriend of 18 months, Emily MacDonagh, on New Year’s Eve, just seven days before he became a father for the third time when his new fiancee gave birth to a baby girl.
Peter already has two children son Junior, eight, and six-year-old daughter, Princess from his marriage to Katie Price.
“My plan was always to propose to Emily before she had the baby and when I woke up on New Year’s Eve it just felt right,” said Peter.
“You think proposing is going to be easy but funny things happen when you get down on one knee. I wouldn’t have won an Oscar for that performance.”
Things come in threes and Peter’s third piece of good news, although unlikely to bring him Oscar recognition either, is a move into movies.
The Harrow-born singer, who had three No 1 hits in the 1990s, lends his voice to a song in DreamWorks’ latest animation movie, Mr Peabody and Sherman.
“When they asked me to get involved I really thought they were joking. They could have asked Elton John or Gary Barlow but they asked me, so that felt like an honour all in itself.”
Based on a character from the 1950s and ’60s cartoon series The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, Mr Peabody is an inventor, scientist, gourmet chef and two-time Olympic medallist who also happens to be a dog.
Sherman is his adopted son, with whom he travels back in time to teach him real life lessons from history as well as to help him with his homework.
“Mr Peabody’s relationship with Sherman in the film feels very much like my relationship with Junior. Except for the genius bit!” laughed Peter.
Mr Peabody and Sherman is out in cinemas now.
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