There was a time when Princess and Junior Andre couldn’t say much about their parents without it becoming tomorrow’s front page.
Now they’re adults, they’re speaking more than ever. And while they’re still determined not to pit one parent against the other, a pattern is beginning to emerge.
The siblings revealed this week that they’ve both had matching tattoos reading ‘unconditional’, inspired by a song Peter Andre wrote for Harvey during his marriage to Katie Price.
The pair said they wanted something that represented ‘unity, love and togetherness’ as a family, with Princess explaining how Peter’s song reflected becoming ‘a father before becoming a dad’ because Harvey isn’t biologically his.
It’s a touching story that arrives just days after Princess and Junior opened up, in unusually frank terms, about growing up with Katie.
Appearing in The Princess Diaries, they admitted Katie’s Sky documentary put them in an ‘awkward position’, saying they loved both parents and didn’t want to feel caught in the middle.
Whenever they’re asked about Katie, they answer with remarkable generosity.
Princess says she just wants her mum to be happy. Junior insists, ‘She’s our mum. We only have one mum.’
Even discussing Lee Andrews, Katie’s latest husband, Princess carefully sidestepped any criticism despite admitting she’d never actually met him.
Yet refusing to attack Katie doesn’t mean they haven’t started telling the truth about their own experiences.
Katie’s new Sky documentary series contained perhaps the most revealing insight we’ve ever had into what life was like behind the headlines.
Junior and Princess spoke emotionally about feeling neglected during Katie’s struggles after the breakdown of her marriage to Kieran Hayler, explaining they often found themselves looking after Jett and Bunny while they were still children themselves.
In heartbreaking scenes, they revealed how often their mum would be absent.
‘The siblings would just look after each other. I remember trying to figure out if food was microwaveable to feed us for dinner… not that she didn’t feed us, but she was out all the time,’ Junior recalls.
Princess remembers how her mum sprayed a blanket with her perfume and gave it to her when she would leave, saying: ‘I remember after school I used to go home and feel so lonely, I used to cuddle the blanket and just cry.’
Junior then recalled a heartbreaking incident in which he saw his mum on drugs, explaining: ‘I remember this one time I was in her bed, waiting for her to come back and I woke up at 3.30am to some loud noises and I see her come in the room.
‘I’ll never forget the look on her face. She was obviously on stuff… I could see it in her eyes. It scared me because I’ve never seen my mum like that. She’s there, but she’s not there. That’s when things started recurring, and I started seeing the same patterns. I started seeing her fall down the same hole.’
‘When she wasn’t in the right headspace, she wasn’t being a mum. She wasn’t being the mum that I knew from when I was a little boy. The amount of love that she gave me was so immense, and that’s what I missed so much,’ he added.
When they describe stability, they talk about Peter, so chose a tribute to him for their shared tattoo.
That doesn’t diminish Katie’s importance in their lives. In fact, one of the more encouraging developments of the past year is the thaw between Katie and Peter after more than 15 years of hostility.
Princess has said everything feels ‘more normal’ since the truce, and for two children who spent their entire adolescence navigating one of Britain’s most public celebrity divorces, that probably matters more than anyone else.