Current Job: Carphone Warehouse Manager
Home: Port Talbot, South Wales
Paul sang Nessun Dorma after years of health problems. He broke his collar bone in a motorbike accident in 2003 which kept him away from performing. He has struggled for cash and has never reached his potential in opera.
He reaches the semi-finals on the TV show Britain’s Got Talent:
Latest News:
PAVAROTTI wannabe Paul Potts told how TV show Britain’s Got Talent taught him to love singing again as he sailed through to the final last night.
The opera singer, 36, said: “Singing is like an old friend to me and I lost it when I was ill and had an accident in 2003.
“I haven’t had any training or proper singing practice since then and just decided that I would try and go for an audition. I wasn’t even confident that I would get through and now all these things are happening. It’s unbelievable.”
Paul scooped the biggest share of the public vote after a performance Simon Cowell described as “magic”.
The Carphone Warehouse manager, who received a standing ovation from the audience for his rendition of Time To Say Goodbye, looked tearful as judge Piers Morgan said: “When we signed for this show we had a vision of finding someone doing an ordinary job, someone unassuming who quietly had this amazing talent that we could provide a platform for. You are that guy.”
Paul from Port Talbot, South Wales, has become an overnight star since his audition for the ITV show was screened at the weekend.
His version of Nessun Dorma has been seen by more than a MILLION people on website YouTube and was even shown on Australian TV yesterday.
Paul first sang opera aged 28 for a karaoke when he dressed as Pavarotti. He went on to perform on Michael Barrymore’s My Kind Of Music and won £8,000 which he spent on training courses in Italy.
And after spending a total of £20,000 he even got to sing in a masterclass for his idol Pavarotti. But disaster struck in 2003 when doctors discovered a benign tumour when he was being treated for appendicitis.
Days after recovering he was knocked off his bike and broke a collarbone.
Paul explained: “It meant for a couple of years instead of thinking about singing I was lying on the sofa in agony.
“Now when I go on stage my wife Julie doesn’t want people to say break a leg, because I probably will. But we feel like we might have turned a corner now.
“If I was to win the £100,000 prize I would have to pay off a lot of debts. I would love singing to be all I do. It is my first love.”
Paul will be joined in Sunday night’s final by monkey puppeteer Damon Scott.
Article from The Daily Mirror, 15th June.
This post was written by bullets on June 16, 2007
