Paul Ponders Grill Work

So what would you do if someone dropped the equivalent of $200,000 dollars in your lap? I am sure each of us has their own thoughts, but for the world's next great tenor, Paul Potts, the answer is to pay down bills and get your teeth fixed:

Singing mobile phone salesman Paul Potts woke up £100,000 richer today after winning television show Britain's Got Talent, and revealed that he will spend part of his prize money clearing debts and improving his teeth.

Paul Potts, 36, won over the nation with a performance of Nessun Dorma in the final of the hit ITV1 talent show, watched by 12.1 million viewers.

The former Tesco shelf-stacker from Port Talbot, South Wales, will now perform in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance.

Potts said that his win had not yet sunk in but that he was planning to pay off his £30,000 debts - although he was not 100-per cent sure about giving up his day job.

Potts spent £12,000 on singing lessons before deciding his dream was not meant to be. He began stacking shelves in Tesco but had to quit work because of a spell of ill health.

Doctors treated him for appendicitis and removed a benign tumour, while Potts also broke his collarbone.

He landed a job at Carphone Warehouse after battling back to health and married a woman he met on the internet.

Today Potts said: "There are a few people who are going to want me to pay off some debts.

"Two years off sick knocks you for six when all you have to live on is your credit card. I had to work hard just to keep my head above water.

"I still can't believe I'm in this position. I don't know how long it's going to take to sink in. At the moment it's all a bit of a haze."

Potts, who has also landed a record deal with Simon Cowell, the TV show judge, said of fixing his teeth: "I'm not sure about veneers but I do want to get the crown repaired. It would be nice to be able to smile naturally. I feel very self conscious about it at the moment. But whatever I do I'm not going to change who I am."

"I'm a team leader at Carphone Warehouse but I don't think anybody is expecting me back. I'll just see what happens," he added.

Potts said of his wife, Julie Ann: "I would like to treat her to a nice holiday, maybe a safari. That would be a nice luxury item."

Read the entire story here. If for any reason you missed any of Paul's incredibly moving performances in the Britain's Got Talent show, please see here, here, and here. Paul's voice is so good, his personal story so sympathetic, and his demeanor so likeable, he may well be that very rarest of stars who appeals beyond his genre. He might well bring Opera to the unwashed masses . . . on both sides of the pond.

(H/T Dinah Lord)