Princess and Junior Andre have said they thought they would die during a 2018 robbery in South Africa, speaking about the traumatic event for the first time since it happened
Princess and Junior Andre have spoken about a traumatic robbery in South Africa for the first time, sharing that they thought they were going to die.
The two reality TV stars were in South Africa in 2018 with their mum Katie Price when six armed men attacked their car and threatened them with their guns. Princess and Junior, who were ten and 12 at the time, were left traumatised by what happened, as the men not only stole their phones, laptops, cash and passports, but began “touching up” their mum.
In 2022, Katie shared that she was raped by the men and was “waiting to be shot” whilst trying to protect her children. Junior has now said that the trauma they were left with made him want to be more independent, while it made Princess want to “rely more on other people”.
Princess explained to the Mail: “I was scared to go anywhere. I always wanted people around me, because I’d never feel safe if they weren’t there.”
Junior added: “We were robbed, threatened with our lives, thinking we were going to die. That obviously made her scared to go out and be vulnerable. Whereas for me, I tried to fight it off by saying, ‘I’m just going to face this and I’m going to be independent.'”
Katie and her children were in South Africa to film a reality show. Katie told the Mail in 2022 that she felt it wouldn’t have happened if she had security with her.
“The experience when I was filming with ITV in South Africa, we had no security If we had security they would have been able to deal with the six guys that jumped us, held me at gunpoint and raped me.”
The star, now 48, also shared that she was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after the attack and became suicidal. She said: “I hit severe depression a couple of years ago, depression on top of PTSD. I was suicidal, didn’t want to be here. Tried to kill myself.”
She said the attack became a catalyst for other mental health struggles and that she had to go to therapy. Katie also spent time at a rehab facility to deal with her PTSD. On Loose Women, she added: “I can’t even tell you how traumatic it was. We all thought we were going to die. I was holding the pillow up waiting to be shot to protect my children.”
In her 2023 book, Katie’s mum, Amy, said she felt the attack was the start of the former glamour model’s “downward spiral”. She wrote: “It would be easy to pinpoint the beginning of Kate’s downward spiral to the carjacking fiasco. A few months after the traumatic incident, one of Kate’s friends rang me to say they had found her trying to kill herself.”
If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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