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Peter Andre was paid ‘thousands’ for charity busk that raised £260

Is that fair?

A discussion has been sparked about whether or not celebs should be paid for charity work.

It comes as it is revealed that Peter Andre received thousands of pounds from a homeless charity to give a short performance but only helped to raise £260?

The former I’m A Celebrity star had been praised for taking time out from a busy schedule to warble some of his 90’s hits like ‘Mysterious Girl’.

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However, some have questioned why he was paid so much for a fundraising performance that only lasted 15 minutes and raised barely enough to buy a homeless person a decent dome tent.

He was paid by a building society for the pop-up gig in London last month and big-hearted Peter has since said he gave a big chunk of his performance fee to Shelter.

After tweeting about the gig Andre was positively drenched in praise from his adoring fans.

On eager fan said: “What a truly wonderful thing to do, I bet it made you feel good, helping others that are less fortunate than you.”

Another tweeted: “It only takes one person to make a change.”

Clearly unimpressed with raising just £260 – which is pretty good for 15 minutes as any busker will tell you –  Peter tweeted a fortnight later and said he was pairing up with Nationwide again to encourage people to donate using their debit cards and mobile phones.

It still begs the question: should stars be paid for performing at charity events?

Celebs are even paid to appear on charity quizzes like The Chase and Pointless, sometimes bagging more than the amount raised for their chosen good cause.

Peter’s ‘people’ have now tried to pour cold water on criticism from a newspaper of the six-packed pop singer.

They said: “He (Peter) supports six or seven chosen charities and does everything for them free of charge every year.”

“It’s a shame that a paper doesn’t pick up on any of the things he does completely free and gives so much time to helping people.”

Ouch. They also made it clear that Peter Andre had given money to Shelter but didn’t say how much.

Meanwhile, Nationwide told The Mirror: “As part of our wider promotion of Samsung Pay, the latest smartphone payment service, we demonstrated how customers could transact using their handsets rather than cash.

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“Research we conducted showed that people would give twice as much to charity if they used mobile payments.

“We teamed up with Peter Andre as a spokesperson for this campaign.”

Shelter said it paid no money to the star and was grateful for the donation.


Christian Guiltenane
Freelance Writer