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Senior Member
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rutland
Posts: 25,358
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rutland
Posts: 25,358
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Rhydian and the no seX Factor
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Rhydian and the no seX Factor Away from the ridiculous metallic suits and pale make-up that are the talking point of every Saturday night's X Factor, Rhydian Roberts seems almost disappointingly normal.
The undisputed star and favourite to win this year's series of the ITV1 talent competition, opera singer Rhydian has been dressed up in the most bizarre outfits every week by producers determined to inject some pizazz into the show.
But when we meet, his lavish sequinned suits have been swapped for jeans, a sweatshirt and walking boots.
His peroxide blond hair doesn't seem so strange when it has not been gelled to stand on end. His eyes which appear so steely on TV are animated.
And he even has a sense of humour.
"It has been difficult turning around the perception that people have of me," the 24-year-old confides.
"I think that at first I came across as - for want of a better word - a w****r.
"I was more worried about that than the look the producers have given me as I know that's just entertainment. But none of it's really me."
You can say that again.
While on the show he is coiffed and dressed to look a lot like a camp version of the Terminator, prompting even Sharon Osbourne (who has a bat-biting hubby) to call him "weird", but Rhydian's attitude towards life is best summed up as being old-fashioned.
Brought up as a non-conformist Christian by his parents Angela and Malcolm, who live in a former farm cottage, Welsh-born Rhydian believes in working hard. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke and doesn't have sex.
His only vice is drinking cups of tea - he's on 20 a day.
"I don't want to shove it down people's throats but, yes, I do have a faith," he says.
"I am a Christian and I believe in God and I do think celibacy is part of my faith.
"That is not to say I don't fall short sometimes - I am like any other guy.
"I get attracted to ladies. But if you have faith and you say you are a Christian you can't then twist it and abuse and compromise it.
"You can't say, I'm a Christian, but I'm going to hump away. I have too much respect for ladies. I think sex is a great thing but it shouldn't be abused. So no, I haven't had it."
There has been one girl special enough for Rhydian to take home to meet his parents: 25-year-old Hungarian pianist Marasfalvi Tunde. But she has admitted that Rhydian was almost too gentlemanly with her.
"I gave him the opportunity to start a physical relationship," she said.
"But he is a Christian and told me he did not believe in sex before marriage. But the way he was with me and things we did together are enough to convince me he was definitely not gay."
The pair's relationship broke up when she was forced to return home when her visa ran out and Rhydian says he no longer has time for women in his life. He has a different mission.
"I don't want to sound like a machine, but I have always been so focused on what I do that I don't have much time for anything else," he says.
"I have always wanted to focus on being the best that I can possibly be.
"Most of my time I am either training my voice, in the gym, or doing performances.
"It can come across as obsessive but I believe that if you want things in life you have to work at them. You have to make sacrifices.
"I love going out with the ladies but I am putting my career first at the moment. I want to be in a position where I can establish myself and then start a family.
"I have a lot to be thankful for and for the talent that God has given me. It is a gift. And what do you do with a gift? You pass it on.
I want to give my gift to as many people as possible. If they want it, great 58 - if they want to bin it, fine. But at least they have a chance."
When the series first started and showed the audition process and the boot camp stage at which contestants were whittled down to the final 12 Rhydian was seen as the X Factor's hate figure.
He was seen as so arrogant that even the notoriously immodest Simon Cowell said he was "up his own a**e".
Sharon Osbourne actually stormed out of the room saying he was "nauseating" when the other three judges, Simon, Louis Walsh and Dannii Minogue, said they had to put him through because he could sing.
With Rhydian clearly coming across as full of his own self-importance and believing he was born to win the show, careful editing made it seem that he was deliberately late for appearances, while he attracted ire for saying he wanted a knighthood.
His comments sparked such outrage that websites were set up describing Rhydian as "the most hated man in Wales", and he even got death threats.
Family friends rallied around to monitor the worst of the sites and had a couple of the worst ones closed down.
But things have calmed down since the show went live in October and Rhydian, frequently praised by the judges - even Sharon - for his star potential has quickly gone from being its baddie to the favourite.
Now Simon, who as well as being the show's judge is its producer, admits that even he was wrong about Rhydian.
"He is nothing like the monster that you might have expected from those early scenes," he told me.
"He is incredibly polite and respectful. He stands out because he has an incredible voice but there is no arrogance or conceit. He's a very good guy and in fact I think he is very insecure."
Simon's verdict is one shared by the person who knows Rhydian best; his mother Angela.
"He has the confidence of knowing that God is with him but he has a lot of self doubt," she says.
"He is confident about his voice and his performing but as a personality he is not confident at all. He was devastated when people were writing nasty things about him.
"He is terribly nervous every week before the shows, but he always steps up to the line."
She was horrified when he was turned into the show's new Mr Nasty and particularly upset at Sharon's behaviour when she branded her son "arrogan"' and "the most nauseating individual I've met in years."
"There was a lot of clever editing going on to make Rhydian look bad.
"I was surprised at Sharon. But things have changed a lot now, people can see Rhydian for who he really is. Sharon always gives me a wave at the Saturday shows and there are no hard feelings."
But she does believe her son has been penalised for coming from a solid family background.
"People think Rhydian is unemotional, because he hasn't broken down in tears and doesn't have a sob story," she says.
There's a format and Rhydian didn't conform. But what is wrong with coming from a happy family home? He has as a very middle-class background, he has had the benefit of a good education and believes in being polite and nice.
"We are active Christians, which means not just going to Church but taking time every day to think about God. He makes comments about his God-given talent and people think as arrogance, but it's not - it's a statement.
People seem to see something wrong in coming from a happy, solid family home nowadays. Everyone is so quick to be sarcastic and people down."
X Factor's most entertaining contestant hails from a remote rural near the small village of Sennybridge within the Brecon Beacons national park in the middle of Wales.
The former farm cottage that is his home is surrounded by fields and livestock.
The nearest neighbour is just about visible on a clear day.
Rhydian's father Malcolm, 58, is an electrical contractor, while Angela, 56, works for a charity called Crossroads that gives breaks to family carers. 'It's a farming area,' Angela tells me. 'We had a quiet life until the X Factor.'
That is not to say that the family had not, however, been touched by showbusiness before. Angela's father, a GP in the Rother valley, delivered a certain Welshman known as Tom Jones 67 years ago.
RHYDIAN, known as 'The Rhydler' to his friends and fans - is Angela and Malcolm's youngest son. His older brother, Gareth, 27, is a solicitor in London. From the start he never kept still 58 - and always attracted attention.
'He had lots and lots of curly red hair,' says Angela. 'People used to stop us in the street when he was in the pram to run their fingers through it.'
A young soprano, he often competed at the Welsh language music and drama festival Urdd Eisteddfod representing first his school and then his county. But then he discovered rugby.
'My plan was to be a professional player for [Gavin Henson's team] the Swansea Ospreys,' he says. 'From the age of ten that was all I could think about 63 - and I wasn't interested in singing any more.'
Eager to lose his puppy fat and get into peak condition, he embarked on a stringent exercise programme which he continues to this day.
He won a place at the prestigious Llandovery College public school, which is famous for its rugby prowess.
He worked his way up to rugby captain and school sports master Huw Thomas remembers him well: 'Rhydian was mad on rugby. Whenever you saw him he had a rugby ball in his hands. He was a bustling centre and was a strong, hard-running player.
'Never in a month of Sundays did I think he would end up doing this - he was always sports mad.'
But Rhydian - who started highlighting his strawberry blond hair in his teens - says it was when his mother took him to a Bizet opera at the age of 14 that he fell in love with music all over again.
'I didn't want to go to the opera but my mum forced me and I fell in love with it,' he said. 'From then on I started doing musicals at school and having singing lessons.'
After achieving four As in his Alevels, as well as being head boy, Rhydian had to make a decision about his future - music or rugby? The singing won - mainly because Rhydian thought he had a higher chance of getting to the very top with it.
'I had lots of rugby injuries and had a groin strain that got worse. And in the end I thought I might not be good enough for rugby,' he says.
'I like to keep things real and I knew that I could never be the best at rugby. With music I never thought I was going to be a megastar, but I always hoped to get a recording contract.'
Angela says she has never had any doubts that Rhydian would achieve what he set out to do: 'When Rhydian focuses on something, nothing will stand in his way.
"At school he had to work very, very hard.
He is not naturally academic but got all As in his exams. He was the same with his rugby and then his singing.
"As soon as he got serious he started spending two hours a day on singing practice.
"In the winter he wears a balaclava to protect his vocal chords - he does everything he can to look after his voice. He is determined."
After taking a gap year, when he taught in a school in South Africa, Rhydian won a bursary to Birmingham University's Conservatoire to.
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Source and Pictures: Daily Mail
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07-12-2007, 08:41 AM
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