Dougie Poynter sends Mcfly bandmates pictures of pet Praying Mantis

26 June 2019

Dougie Poynter shares pictures of his Praying Mantis when his McFly bandmates send photos of their kids.

Dougie Poynter

The 31-year-old musician admitted that when his pals Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones and ‎Harry Judd - all of whom have children - share images of their kids in their group chat, he responds with texts about his beloved insect, who he has named Lumpy Space Princess.

In an exclusive interview with BANG Showbiz, he said: "I've got a Praying Mantis, her name is Lumpy Space Princess.

"She is about three or four months old. she's shed three times and then I think she'll shed another three times and then she'll die but she's rad she's really, really cool.

When in an exclusive asked whether he opted to share photos of his pet when his bandmates sent pictures of their children, he said: "The other guys have kids and I've got a Praying Mantis, yeah."

The 'Obviously' hitmaker has been vocal about his love of nature and the need for environmental change and recently embarked on a mission reduce festival waste, as well as releasing a new children's book called 'Plastic Sucks' about how people can individually help the environment.

Dougie revealed despite the book being for kids, he originally wrote it with adults in mind but decided to target the novel at children when his publisher thought it would be "great" for younger people.

He said: "I actually wrote this book for adults and I gave it to my publisher and they were like 'Oh this is a great kids book, you really got inside the head of a kid' and I was like 'Yeah sure that's what I was doing the whole time, thanks I'm really good at what I do'.

"I've tried to do it so that it wasn't confusing and overwhelming and just as fun as possible and out in some cool stuff about the environment and about nature is a reason I'm such a fan of it."

Dougie is backing a campaign targeting festival waste after research from Go Outdoors showed 56% of people leave things behind afterwards, including rubbish, bottles, leftover food and drink and personal belongings, while over a quarter of festival-goers by tents just for use at one event and dump them after.