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Paul Robert Potts (born 13 October 1970 in Bristol, England), from Port Talbot in South Wales, is a British tenor who in 2007 became the winner of the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent, singing an operatic aria, "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot. Potts had worked in unpaid opera productions from 1999 to 2003.
Potts has been married since May 2003 to the former Julie-Ann Cooper, whom he met in an Internet chat room. They connected in person for the first time at the Swansea Railway Station in February, 2001. Julie-Ann had the upper hand at this "first meeting" as she had a photograph of Paul, but he had no idea what she looked like.[23]
On June 9, 2007, Potts' audition of Simon Cowell's new search-for-a-star show Britain's Got Talent was televised on ITV1 in the UK. The audition was held at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on March 17, 2007.[11] Paul sang Giacomo Puccini's "Nessun Dorma," for which he received a standing ovation from the audience of 2,000 people. Contrary to popular belief, Paul did not sing a condensed version of the aria, but rather the full rendition. The editing process did not produce a "perfect" condensation, as one can see his lips getting ready to sing the next line after his second "...Nessun Dorma...", which starts with "Tu pure, o, Principessa...".[12] This performance has been viewed on video upload site YouTube over 24 million times.[13][14]

In the semi-final on June 14, 2007, Potts performed the main verses of "Con te partirò" ("Time to Say Goodbye").[15] He progressed to the final after receiving the highest public vote in that show.[16] He performed "Nessun Dorma" for his finale on June 17, 2007 as well as an encore after he won the competition. Potts defeated co-favourite with the bookmakers, Connie Talbot and received the highest public vote out of two million votes cast to win Britain's Got Talent, winning the right to perform at the Royal Variety Performance on December 3, 2007, in front of Her Majesty The Queen.

In December 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented Potts with a discography plaque for having sold 2,000,000 copies of his album One Chance and for showing that "Britain really does have huge amounts of talent."[17]


[edit] Recent activity
In the United States, he was profiled on a National Public Radio programme called "Day to Day" on June 15, 2007. On June 18, 2007, a commercial US Television network, NBC, highlighted Potts' victory on its broadcast network's NBC Nightly News and on its Cable news outlet MSNBC. Then on June 21, 2007 he appeared live on NBC's programme Today.

During the programme there was some controversy[18]as to the "undiscovered" nature of Potts' talent. He was portrayed on the show as simply a mobile-phone salesman, whereas he had in fact appeared in six amateur opera productions and in a concert for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra[8] and had plans for a summer tour with the Orchestra.[8] Potts responded to his critics saying that he had not claimed to be completely untutored, that he had never performed any concert for pay and was therefore amateur and that the lessons he had received in Italy had been paid for from his own savings.[19]

On July 8, 2007, Potts performed at a Katherine Jenkins' concert at Margam Park, "Katherine In The Park". Jenkins extended an invitation for him to sing his rendition of "Nessun Dorma" at the concert.[20] On July 16, 2007, his debut album One Chance was released in UK, and on July 22, 2007, the album claimed the number one spot in the UK Album Chart. On November 6, 2007, Potts appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to perform on a show whose topic was YouTube.[21] On November 24, 2007, Potts was interviewed on the National Public Radio programme Weekend Edition Saturday.

On December 13, 2007, he performed in Leipzig in the live television broadcast of the 13th annual José Carreras Gala, accompanied by the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg under the direction of Scott Lawton.[1]

On January 17, 2008, exactly six months to the day after winning Britain's Got Talent, he began his 2008 Concert Series at the Pavilion Theatre[22] in Rhyl, U.K., which will be covering 65 cities across 13 countries. His current concert schedule ends on June 9, 2008, exactly one year after his first appearance on Britain's Got Talent.

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