Do you remember Paul Potts?

Still living in Port Talbot, Wales (and planning to for the rest of his life), this talent-show millionaire lives a quiet life with his wife Julie-Ann. The two met on the internet.

The singer had an extremely complicated life until he caught the attention of the UK - and the world - when he stepped out to sing on the first season of 'Britain's Got Talent'.

March 2007. It was the first season of Britain's Got Talent. There were tens of thousands of candidates and amongst them, there was a serious, shy and withdrawn chap whose presence was barely noticeable, until he got stage.

He introduced himself as Paul Potts, a 37-year-old mobile phone shop manager, who was ready to sing opera in the UK's next biggest musical talent show. It was a bit of a long shot against two of the most ruthless judges in the history of television: Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan. A friendlier Amanda Holden was judge number three.

And then magic happened. Paul Potts opted for a rendition of Giacomo Puccini's tricky 'Nessun Dorma' and took everyone's breath away. Within five seconds, everyone present, including Amanda Holden, was either in tears, with their mouths open, or both. Ten seconds later, the audience's hands ached from applauding. A star was born.

Paul Potts would go on to perform 'Nessun Dorma' in the final of the talent show and win the competition. At the time, Paul Potts was a mass phenomenon.

In addition to the £100,000 prize money, Paul Potts signed a record deal with Simon Cowell. The star was continuing to shine.

What people might not know is that Paul Potts' life had been far from easy up to that point. His dream of becoming an opera singer had been reduced to an unattainable pipe dream. It was only by chance that he came across the advert for 'Britain's Got Talent' that he tried his luck one last time.

Despite his talent, Paul Potts never had any self-confidence. One of the reasons for this was that he was teased by his schoolmates when he was only six years old. The reason? His family didn't have much money.

And so the young Paul Potts began to take refuge in music. But as he practised and improved his art, his confidence waned.

His already diminishing confidence was then to suffer a major blow. Aged 14, he crashed into a scaffold while running to singing practice in the choir of Bristol's Christ Church. The blow was so severe that he broke a tooth, a physical trait he still had on the day of the Britain's Got Talent audition.

But he was to suffer a more serious accident at the age of 18. A car ran him over and he broke a vertebra, leaving him bedridden for months. He had to repeat his school year.

Despite all this, Paul Potts went on to study philosophy, film, television and theology, as well as continuing his musical training.

In 1999, at the age of 29, he decided to try his hand at his first game show: 'My Kind of Music' (ITV). He didn't reach the final but he did win £8,000, which he invested in fulfilling one of his dreams: meeting Luciano Pavarotti.

Paul Potts travelled to Italy for three months of opera lessons. In 2001 he repeated the trip, with the added bonus of singing for Luciano Pavarotti, whom he entertained with an aria from 'Rodolfo' from 'La Bohème'.

Life was going swimmingly for the shy singer who, in 2001, met Julie-Ann in an internet chat room. Two years later, they got married and the groom dedicated a version of the German 'Ich Liebe Dich' (I Love You) to his fiancée, much to the delight of a hundred or so guests.

At the same time, Paul Potts was making a name for himself as a singer, performing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in front of over 15,000 people.

But just when everything seemed perfect, 2003 came along and Paul Potts was diagnosed with a benign tumour in his adrenal gland. The operation halted its progression but he was kept away from work for months.

Once he was cured, the singer got back on the path to his dream of becoming a professional singer but, once again, a car crossed his path. Four days after he was discharged from hospital, he was hit by a car while he was riding his bicycle. He broke his collarbone and injured his neck.

Again, Potts suffered several months out of work, a debt of 30,000 pounds and another blow to his already deteriorated self-esteem. It was 2003 and Paul Potts did not sing again until his 'Britain's Got Talent' audition.

In fact, in 2004 he left music for good and started working for a mobile phone company, where he never even mentioned his musical talent and career.

And so 2007 arrived and Paul Potts stumbled upon an advert on the internet: the auditions for 'Britain's Got Talent'. The rest is history. Simon Cowell's "I think you're absolutely fantastic" is television history and gave meaning to Paul's lifetime of suffering and adversity.

The singer signed a £1 million contract with Simon Cowell and his first album, 'One Chance' (2007) was number one in sales in 13 countries, including the tough UK market.

Six years later, James Corden would step into the tenor's shoes and bring his story to the cinema. However, the film 'One Chance' cost 12 million dollars to make and didn't even gross 11 million. A minor commercial failure.

Fortunately for Paul Potts, his singing career has been more successful than the film about his life. The tenor has sold more than 3 million copies of his albums and has toured the world several times. One of his latest tours even allowed the singer to enjoy Denmark at Christmas.

Despite not having more than 6,500 followers on Instagram, Paul Potts dedicated himself to recording videos of opera tunes during the 2020 confinement. He called it Paul Potts - Lockdown Series. It made many smile while stuck in their homes.

He appeared on The Masked Singer UK in 2019 and the Masked Singer Germany in 2022. Wearing a giant Koala suit, Paul did a great job and even made it to the third show before being found out by the judges. HE's still got it in him and we are sure this isn't the last you will see of Paul Potts...