Ele já era cantor de ópera antes de participar desse programa de TV:
"Potts first sang opera in 1999 in a karaoke competition, dressed as Luciano Pavarotti.[4] That same year he appeared in the Michael Barrymore talent show My Kind of Music. Although he did not take first place, he won £8,000 — enough to help pay for vocal lessons in Italy, during which he was selected to perform in front of singers Pavarotti and Katia Ricciarelli.
For the Bath Opera of Bath, Somerset, he performed on four occasions in the roles of Don Basilio (Marriage of Figaro), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Don Carlos Verdi's Don Carlos, and both the Prince of Persia and the Herald in Turandot.[8][9][4] He also sang for the Royal Philharmonic in front of an audience of 15,000 and toured Northern Italy as a soloist.[8]
Potts broke his collarbone and suffered whiplash in a bicycle accident in 2003, which prevented him from pursuing opera as a career. The mishap and financial difficulties that followed led him to enter the talent show.[10]"
"During the programme there was some controversy[17]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 four 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.[18]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Potts