“I hate him. He’s repugnant.” Rhydian’s impression of her witchy, high pitched voice is spot on. He emits a hearty gust of laughter to show there were no hard feelings. “I love her. Sharon and I get on really well off stage – a lot of it’s TV. Initially, mind you, when I saw the first shows I thought, ‘that’s a bit mean’, and my parents were a bit upset.
“It’s all done for effect owing to the fact I didn’t have a story, so they had to make me into an interesting character.”
Lots of women absolutely love Rhydian. While Leon’s two fan sites already have a sad air of neglect about them, a Google search throws up five on Rhydian, fastidiously updated and rife with breathy speculation about his love life. His official site proudly declares itself to be the “biggest community of Rhydian fans on the internet”.
“As far as female attention goes, well, it’s very flattering,” he says, stuttering slightly. “I’ve got quite a few sites that have been set up, I hate saying fan sites. The majority of the members are . . . female, which is fine. But I’m always conscious that if you are performing at a club, which I don’t do much, there’s always going to be the jealous boyfriend or husband. I’ve been warned about it.”
To date, he’s had 2,460 fan letters including several offers of marriage. Taking up any of them would be a route out of his self- imposed vow of celibacy, a condition he’s neither boastful nor embarrassed about.
After the show, he asked out Simon Cowell’s make-up artist, Julie Carter, 12 years his senior.
“She’s my current girlfriend,” he says happily. “She’s lovely.” He says he fancied her when they were doing the show, and “she was very supportive and gave me little tips and words of encouragement”.
He was single on Valentine’s Day last year – although as February 14 is his birthday, he explains he always managed to look quite popular to the postman at least – and is looking forward to marking this one properly.
“We’re quite romantic like that,” he says breezily. “I’ll be sending her a card and stuff. She is OK with my celibacy. She has understanding, because she has a similar faith, which is nice.
“If people think I’m weird or whatever for not sleeping with a girl, so be it, I’ll sleep with the person I feel in love with, when I find that person and decide to marry. You can’t have a faith and try to compromise.” But he cheerily adds with what I’d swear was bit of a leer: “I’m not stuck by it – I can have fun with a lady without us sleeping together.”
He’s reputed to be picking up £1m from his Sony record deal. He’d like a clutch of number ones, or at least successful, albums, a West End or even a Broadway role, but he is also realistic about being a possible flash in the pan. So, grounded lad that he is, he’s making hay while the sun shines.
“I’ve bought my dad a field out in the sticks in mid-Wales,” he says. “My dad’s always dreamed of having a six-acre field and he wants to build a lake on it in retirement. It’s nice to see his face light up. Mainly, I just want to be happy. The X Factor can be dissed, but it’s actually opened a lot of doors for me.”
The classical world decided on magnanimity, after all.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? If you are successful, whatever you do, people still want to brown-nose you,” muses Rhydian. “I feel like saying ‘Oh, you’ve changed your tune, Mr Director, from the classical operatic world’. But I’m just happy now, that I can just be me.”
* THE X Factor 2008 Live Tour will be coming to The Echo Arena Liverpool on March 4. For tickets and information, go to www.bookingsdirect.com
