Will Young celebrates 20 years since Pop Idol win

“They voted for someone who was posh, not very cool, didn’t write his own songs and was gay. I would never have been signed by a record company otherwise. I think that it is testament to those that voted for me that I am still going 20 years later. They put their trust in me.

“We were very lucky. One of the best things was that it was so pure. It was a singing competition and the public were never duped. They paid money by phoning in. They were the record company and they voted for me to have a record contract. They took the power away from the fat cats at the record companies and I will never forget that.”

To mark the 20th anniversary of his win Young is touring the UK later this year, including dates in York, Hull and Sheffield.

You would think he would want to push the forthcoming tour as that is really why we are chatting. But Young has something which seems more important on his mind.

“I am on my way to Huntingdon where they breed Beagles for animal testing. People just don’t know about it and so I am going to chain myself to the gates and get some publicity. I feel passionately that as a nation of dog lovers we are allowing this sort of thing to still happen.”

The biomedical facility, named ‘Camp Beagle’ by animal rights campaigners, has been at the focal point of protests since the summer, though the company that runs the facility says it helps save many human and animal lives.

After our interview finished Young handcuffed himself to the gates, only unlocking the handcuffs when asked to by police – and being photographed by national media. “I believe in peaceful protest,” he says.

As well as animal rights, Young is passionate about raising awareness of mental health issues and has talked openly about his own struggles.

During lockdown his twin brother Rupert took his own life. It is something Young doesn’t talk about but it seems to have made him even more determined to raise awareness of mental health.

“In part it comes from a subversive place of showing people that being a pop star or being famous is not what everyone is pretending it can be. I like blowing that illusion out of the water because it then hopefully gives other people permission to feel anything other than 100 per cent the whole time. And also it normalises things – and that does help with me as well. Sometimes I will just drop into conversation, ‘Well yeah, I am agoraphobic so I like staying at home anyway’. I don’t make a big deal of it and people are like, ‘Oh, he just said that on the radio’.

“But it’s not being ashamed of it. It’s normalising it. Humour is really important. It doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom. Those things do help me and maybe give other people permission to not feel so ashamed and alone.”

That leads us on to how contestants on reality shows are treated when it comes to their mental health.

“I understand the criticism, and of some shows, it is valid, but on Pop Idol we were treated really well.” But he claims other shows haven’t. “It just makes me really sad and actually quite angry. I feel a bit unsure as to why certain shows haven’t had their comeuppance in terms of how they have treated people. And I am surprised. There is obviously stuff going on in the background, but hopefully one day it will come out.”

He says standing up to then-judge Cowell on Pop Idol still ranks among his proudest moments. The pair locked horns after the music mogul dubbed his performance “distinctly average”.

“I have to remind myself how young I was and how powerful he was – and I stood up for myself and for others. And I am very proud of that. It was my defining moment really.”

Of his forthcoming 20th anniversary tour he says: “I will be playing some of my hits from over the years but I am also planning to take requests from the audience which is quite an undertaking as I will need to remember 120 songs. I wanted there to be a part in the show that was about giving something back to the audience.”

Created by media mogul Simon Fuller, Pop Idol launched spin-offs all around the world – and the career of one Simon Cowell. Young remembers the time with fondness. “It really was amazing,” he says. “One of the most amazing things about it was that I had just moved up to London. I had got my politics degree and I was moving up to London to start at musical theatre college.”

What, then, is the secret to his longevity? “It’s difficult to answer without sounding conceited or arrogant,” he says. “I didn’t start off cool. I was never cool so I could never be uncool. That’s quite good because if you come in with a massive splash and you are really cool, you can really quickly be uncool. But I never had that… I was the opposite.”

Young recently released his eighth album Crying on the Bathroom Floor, an eclectic collection of covers of songs by female artists, and is looking to do more acting.

“I’m not Harry Styles though,” he jokes of the former One Direction star who has gone on to star in Hollywood movies.

Young was 22 when he won Pop Idol. He is 42 now but has no plans to stop making music – he is under no illusions as to how few artists last so long in a cut-throat industry.

“There is something brilliant about staying in the industry and keeping going,” he muses. “That is not easy. And so it is important to celebrate it for myself and also the fact I still really enjoy it. That’s the thing – I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. I would just go and do something else.”

Still, Young is not ruling out retirement entirely. “Going forward I still think I would want to be retired by 50 and just have lots of dogs.”

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Will Young being crowned winner of the first season of Pop Idol back in 2001, the new tour will take fans on a journey through his meteoric rise to fame.

Tickets for Will Young’s 20 Years Tour can be found at https://willyoung.co.uk. Thursday October 13, Barbican, York; Friday October 21, Bonus Arena, Hull; Monday October 24, Sheffield City Hall.