Peter: I looked an idiot

Peter Andre is, in some ways, rather endearing with his round, chocolate-brown eyes and his little-boy-lost demeanour. The former Nineties pop hunk, who has seeped back into the national consciousness after his spell on I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! is sitting on the sofa in a London hotel suite.

Apparently, he virtually lives here. The receptionist tells me that everyone loves him because he remembers their names. "He's a lovely guy," she says. "I don't think he really has anywhere to stay in London so he's always here."

Whatever, Peter Andre seems happy, eating jelly beans and drinking Coke as if all the madness that is going on around him - the "is he, isn't he?" speculation over his relationship with Jordan, the re-emergence in the charts of his 1995 hit single Mysterious Girl - has nothing to do with him. "It's a bit crazy, isn't it?" he says, blinking like a marsupial.

"Before I went into the jungle I was having a pretty good life. I was living in New York and going round to see record labels because I was writing all these songs ... Mind you," he says, "nobody seemed that interested. But now! I've got a new record deal and I'm recording and touring. It's amazing. Sometimes I wonder why all this has suddenly happened to me!"

Oh dear. Surely he can't be that naive. The word "Jordan" - or Katie Price, her real name and the one Andre uses - comes to mind. He starts giggling and looks rather embarrassed when I mention her name.

The history between them can be summarised like this: they met on I'm A Celebrity ... and Andre seemed to topple pretty quickly for her and spent an excruciating 10 days whispering sweet nothings in her ear while also, rather painfully, asking her the nature of her true feelings. Jordan? I ask. You asked Jordan about her true feelings?

"She was so sweet," he says, looking crestfallen. "Was it really that bad?" Jordan seemed to be toying with him. "She'd say 'trust me' and all that," says Andre. Yes, but she also kept talking about her sex life with Dane Bowers and Gareth Gates and anyone else you'd care to mention.

Anyway, once Jordan reappeared from the jungle she seemed to do a volte-face. She promptly dumped her boyfriend and declared her love for Andre. "That's the simple bit!" Andre says, rolling his eyes. Since then, it's got much more complicated. Instead of falling into each

other's arms and riding off into the sunset, it turns out the couple have barely seen each other - unless it's for a photoshoot for OK! magazine. They have only been for dinner once (and that was with the manager they conveniently share), and that's about it.

The press has smelled a rat. The romance has been deemed fake, a way for the two of them to further their own careers. "But we've only been out of the jungle for six weeks!" protests Andre when I ask him what's going on. "I've been busy. She's been busy!"

But, in the jungle, he seemed besotted. He crept under her sleeping bag at night for a quick cuddle. He even sung his new song Insania for her. "I did!" he says. "It's a good song, isn't it? Anyway, I thought Katie was terrific. Look, here is my hand. It is on my heart. I really like her. She is a great girl. But she's not my girlfriend. We're getting to know each other slowly. I want a relationship with some integrity."

And yet, when he came out, he said things like: "I've had the starter and now I want the main course." "I did, didn't I?" he says. "I'm not sure why I said that. Sometimes I say things and they come out all wrong. It was a joke really."

SO, what's happening? "I understand why people think it's fake but it really isn't. I feel a great connection with her but I'm not going to be forced into rushing things. The truth is, I'd never heard of Katie before I met her on the show," he says.

"I've lived mainly in Australia since I was 10, and then, in the past few years, in Cyprus [he is Greek Cypriot] and the States. I did fall for her, I really did. But I think I looked like a prat. I've seen some of the tapes and she certainly looked as though she was messing me around. I risked a lot there. I did look like an idiot, didn't I?"

Yes, I say. She kept yawning at the camera when he was singing and dancing. "So you can understand why I'm taking it slowly," he says. "If we were really just using our relationship to promote ourselves, we'd be together more, wouldn't we? We'd be selling interviews all over the place, but we're not. I don't understand why people can't see this."

But if he's so keen on integrity and taking it slowly, why are he and Jordan on the cover of OK!, snogging each other? "We went out for a private dinner!" he says. "We were caught by the paparazzi." Oh please, I say. It's so obviously a set-up. And why does he think, if you're going out with the UK's most famous topless enhanced model, there's such a thing called privacy?

"Well, that's what I'm saying," he says. "When I came out of the jungle I was so confused. When I came out, I saw her there with her long blonde hair and all that make-up. She'd whispered to me in the jungle, 'If you like me in here, you'll love me outside!' But I didn't recognise her. I really liked her when she looked natural with her hair braided. I don't really like girls wearing make-up. I just didn't know what to think for ages." Anyway, now he says he thinks she's special but he wants to make sure it's right. "I wanted to make sure our feelings are honest. And, anyway, I talk a lot to her on the telephone. I like a quiet life. I don't mind what she does as a job, it's the person I really want to know and with all this fuss that's a bit difficult."

But it's not as if all this attention is new to him. In his early twenties - he's now 31 - he was famous the first time around. He had three number one singles and a number one album. He was mobbed by screaming girls whenever he moved a muscle and he dated a string of famous women, including Mel B of the Spice Girls and Melanie Blatt of All Saints.

And, boy, did he have muscles! He was infamous for his honed, toned, hairless six-pack and for constantly being photographed standing seminaked in the sea with spume splashing down his chest. Mind you, he doesn't look bad now. Part of his appeal on I'm A Celebrity ... was, apparently, his amazing body. "But I haven't worked out for years!" he says. "I was always into martial arts, not the gym really. I don't do much about that now though."

He is very keen, he says, not to be seen as a sex symbol. "I've changed. When I was in my twenties I thought I was cool. I was quite a name in Australia. I'd been on New Faces. Then I came to the UK and my career took off and it was amazing. But I didn't see the fall. I was on top of the world and I suppose I was rather arrogant. Then the media turned against me and Mysterious Girl was seen as a joke and I got very depressed."

To his credit, 30 per cent of the proceeds from sales of the re-released single will go to the NSPCC, the charity-he supported while in the jungle. But the record is still a joke, I say. It has just been voted one of the worst singles of all time. "So it should be!" says Andre. "It's terrible. God, I can barely listen to it myself !" So, what has changed?

"I'm older," he says. "I believe in conquering things. In the jungle I was terrified of spiders and snakes but since I did those bush-tucker trials [when he had to stick his head in glass cages full of them] I haven't felt that way. I also realised that people like me. I was so surprised that I was one of the last three. I tried to be natural. I got people to hug each other because I'm very into hugs, I'm very into being honest - I'm very Australian in that way. But not everyone was honest.

"I spent so much time talking to Johnny [Lydon]. I really liked him. But then I found out he'd been a bit rude about me and joked about my singing and dancing." A bit rude? I say. He was miming behind your back. Didn't he realise? "No!" he says. "I thought he really liked it."

Well, oh dear again. Peter Andre does seem a terribly trusting soul. He says part of it comes from the fact he had a sheltered but strong family life. "My family moved to the Gold Coast when I was 10. I had a very free childhood. I swam, I surfed and was happy.

"For a long time, when I was beginning to get famous, it didn't bother me because my parents kept me in tow." His parents - his father ran a small hotel - are "old-style", as he describes them, Greek Cypriot. "They're 70 now and they've been married for 30 years! There are six of us, five boys and one girl. We were brought up very traditionally. We eat a lot and talk a lot. My parents would do anything for us."

Are they happy for him now? "They're delighted!" he says. "The night before we went into the jungle, they cooked us all a big barbecue with loads of T-bones. Jordan likes her food, you know! They think this new-found career is great. But I think they'd like me to get married."

He's far too busy at the moment for any of that. There is all this newfound-fame to deal with first, along with the negatives. Various ex-lovers have come forward to reveal their stories, including a certain Rebecca. in the News of the World! He's not very happy with her.

"She said I had no hair on my body and that my, well, you know what, is the size of a chipolata!" Jordan called it an acorn. "It was a joke! Everyone could see it's bigger than that! It was caught on night-time cameras and it's more of a tree, a chestnut say." Or maybe an oak. "Yes, an oak."

He shows me his arms. "See? They're hairy, aren't they? I'm a good person. I care about people. I have to shrug this off but it can be upsetting."

But, he says, this time around he only expects his fame to last a year. "But I'm going to make the most of it. I'm looking to invest in something in the countryside." With Jordan? The words quiet and Jordan don't seem to go together. "I think she's changing," he says. "I think this could be something really big."

BUT they don't see each other! If you love someone, you have to be with them. "I'm busy!" he protests again. Too busy for love? "Not in the long term," he says, "but I'm not going to be pressurised into anything."

In the end, I can't help wondering if he's all that he seems. Maybe it's all fakery, a ploy to promote his career. He seems so genuine but maybe his actions belie his words. And when I really look at him, as I leave, he doesn't look like a cuddly pet at all.

He looks like a strange, smooth, hairless Action Man. His hair is so black, I'm sure it's dyed. I'm convinced he's wearing make-up. You've been Jordaned, I say to him. "I have not!" he says hotly. "You may not have noticed but she hardly wears make-up now. That's because of me!"

I do hope so, I say. Peter Andre may have conquered his fear of spiders but there's one species who, in my opinion, he's nowhere near catching, let alone comprehending.

www.nspcc.org.uk or call 020 7825 2500.