Yahoo News What Celebrity Big Brother's Levi Roots has said about being dad of 8
The Reggae Reggae Sauce owner is a father of eight
Celebrity Big Brother star Levi Roots stunned his housemates when he revealed he is a father of eight.
The star – who rose to fame after pitching his Reggae Reggae Sauce on Dragons’ Den in 2007 – spilled the beans during a chat in the bedroom, when he was asked how many children he had. “Eight!” he replied, leaving his fellow celebs looking gobsmacked.
“Eight!” declared a couple of them, as Fern Britton sat up in bed exclaiming: “Man alive!”
“It gets worse,” Roots said with a smile. “I have eight children with seven different mothers… I’m 65, I started young.”
So who are Roots’ children? And what has he said about being a dad?
Roots has four girls and four boys
The businessman, whose real name is Keith Valentine Graham, is father to four boys named Zaion, Tyran, Danai and Christopher. And he also has four daughters - Bernice, Nathalie, Jo-Anne and Sharlene.
Seven of his children are adults in their 30s and 40s. However, Christopher was born years after the rest in 2013.
Roots previously told The Bristol magazine: “The birth of my son Christopher has, by far, been the most amazing moment of my life since the Den; I thought I was done having children but apparently not.”
Star wants to be ‘shining example’ for his children
Roots has opened up about fatherhood on many occasions and in 2017 told The Guardian how he wants to set a great example for his brood of eight.
“I’m hoping they are inspired by what their dad has done,” he said. “I’ve got to be a shining example for them.”
Talking about having his youngest later on, he said he now had “hindsight” and that it was a great thing. “Now, I am the best Levi Roots I can be,” he explained. “I was still learning while having my other kids and I wasn’t the best of me.”
And he told the Shropshire Star: “I’ve got the chance to get it right and do things differently to how I’ve done it before. We all wish everything we’ve done in life we could do a little bit better.
"I want to be a better father to him. It’s not all about money. You can be a good father if you are working in a chip shop earning minimum wage.”
Being a dad again in his 50s
Roots admitted on The Starting Line Podcast that he was “probably a rubbish dad” when he was younger. But he said he’s learned a lot over the years and has become “the best bloody dad” now.
“Because I've like I said about mistakes, that there is such things as mistakes,” he said. “You know, it's about feedback. I learned the feedback of how to be a proper dad.”
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