Rhydian (pic below) told Clare Balding in an interview on her Good Morning Sunday show on BBC Radio 2 today how he was put under pressure by the X-Factor boss not to talk about his faith.
Rhydian said: "I remember the boss of the show - I'll name no names - said I'm not allowed to mention the Bible."
Clare Balding interrupted Rhydian by naming Simon Cowell.
Rhydian, 31, from Sennybridge near Brecon, continued: "I said that's a bit odd. They said what books do you read? And I just put that [the Bible] down. Why not? It's a great book. But I wasn't allowed to, which is odd.
"It doesn't matter. I can see why they do it. They feel it can alienate people and sometimes professing your faith is controversial and not everybody is going to like it but it's important to me."
Rhydian was speaking to Clare Balding to promote his album One Day Like This, which reached its seventh week at number one in the classical charts today.
Clare asked Rhydian, who finished runner-up behind Leon Jackson in the 2007 X-Factor final, when he was able to start being his own person during the show.
He said: "From day one. During that show, I respected him [Simon Cowell] and I towed the party line. I think it's important when you're in that bubble, which it is. He's an influential guy but as far as the TV company went I wasn't the most popular initially."
The star revealed he was releasing Pearl Fisher's Duet as a single, taken from his album One Day Like This, next Sunday, and had also finished filming a video for the song. Rhydian duets with himself on the song, which he said inspired him to become a singer.
He said: "I just thought why not combine both of my voices? I've got a quite a high range. I'm a high baritone. I'm not a tenor but it's only a B flat with the tenor part and it was the song that made me want to become a professional singer. That melody is so beautiful."
He added:"I have not met anybody who doesn't like that song. I think it is a song that could be the next Nessun Dorma. I think if it's introduced more into the public domain, people might fall in love with it. I hope so."
Rhydian said the video for Pearl Fisher's Duet was filmed on the Jurassic Coast (the Dorset and East Devon coast) in the UK.
He said: "I think they filmed Broadchurch down there, in that area. There's two versions of me in the video, done with costumes and clothes. We also had a studio day where we had close-ups and stuff, and it was quite chilly but it's a beautiful part of the world. I'm going to release the video as well this coming week."
Clare asked Rhydian whether he hated seeing himself on film.
He answered: "I don't particularly like it. I don't think anybody does really. I'm glad I'm doing a body of work which looks good but to look at myself is a bit cringeworthy."
Rhydian also gave the inside story of how Nessun Dorma made it as the finale on One Day Like This.
He said: "It was an accident. It was the bonus track on the end of the album and it worked out okay. I always wanted to do it so I thought it was a rousing way to finish the album."
(See below Rhydian's music video for Nights In White Satin - the lead track from One Day Like This).
Rhydian told Clare how fitness played a major part in achieving success in his singing career.
He said: "I train six days a week. I always train before I go on stage. Some people find it a little bizarre. They think 'Why don't you reserve your energies for performance?' but I feel that I'm alive after I run.
"I played a lot of competitive sport through school and university. I played a lot of rugby and I was a big guy, sixteen-and-a-half stone, pushing seventeen stone and not very tall. I was a big lad.
"I went to South Africa and I just decided I wanted to be a singer. I think looking seventeen stone and five foot nine and a bit, perhaps I should shed a bit of weight because I wanted to do musical theatre as well, so I did.
"I lost nearly five stone and that was through running and a change of diet. And being in South Africa I could be outside and it lent itself more to extra-curricular activities. I coached cricket and rugby.
"They had this run called 'bounds' which was a punishment but I used to do it anyway with the lads who had got punished just to increase my cardiovascular ability."
Clare asked Rhydian whether his fitness routine changed his perception of himself or his personality.
He replied: "I don't know whether it changed my personality. I have always had structure in my life. I'm quite methodical and I just added to that really.
"It's good because some days as a singer, you're very busy, you're doing a lot of promo and you're doing concerts but there other days where you're not doing a lot at all.
"I find somebody like my personality needs structure so I always do my singing practice and my fitness and I feel like I've done a day's work."
Rhydian told Clare he discovered he had a voice when he was just three-years-old.
He said: "I did want to be a singer alongside rugby. I discovered I had a voice when I was three-years-old and I used to get up at family parties and dinner parties.
"I enjoyed it. I used to love getting up. Aled Jones was my hero at the time, singing 'Walking In The Air", and I used to mimic that and compete in eisteddfods. I loved it but I also had a passion for rugby.
"I've said time and time again, it's not really cool to be a boy soprano and claim to be a hard rugby player as well, so I stopped singing which was the best thing I ever did between the ages of eleven and fourteen when the voice broke."
He said his decision to stop singing protected his voice for future success.
He said: "I think a lot of people sing through the transition. I would not recommend that. I think it's better to have a rest, then when the voice breaks, then slowly, slowly, start having tuition with a great teacher."
Rhydian said he had achieved his dream with the success of One Day Like This.
He said: "People often say to me what's my highlight and I have to say that this album going to number one is the highlight of my career because I've always dreamed of having a number one classical album."
Read The Weekly Clucker's review of Rhydian's album One Day Like This by checking out our earlier posts.
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