Darius: The singer who turned down Simon Cowell and still got to No1

Darius Campbell Danesh was the singer who came third on Pop Idol, behind Will Young and Gareth Gates, and looked to have the musical world at his feet.

So industry experts were stunned when he turned down a lucrative record deal from the show’s creator Simon Cowell.

But rather than disappear without a trace, the Scot went on to have five top 10 singles.

He topped it off with his No1 hit Colourblind, produced by Grammy Award-winning Steve Lillywhite in 2002.

And he forged a hugely successful second career as a West End actor and performer.

It led to him splitting his time between Scotland and the US, where he was found dead at his Minnesota apartment on 11 August.

Darius Danesh was born to a Scottish mother and Iranian father in Glasgow on 19 August 1980.

He grew up in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, with two younger brothers.

After completing school at Bearsden Primary and Glasgow Academy, he studied English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh before beginning his pop career.

Darius first rose to fame with an appearance on the ITV show Popstars in 2001.

He became known for his audition performance where he appeared in a black turtleneck, with his hair slicked back in a ponytail and wearing a goatee.

His quirky rendition of Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time and animated facial expressions left the judges unimpressed and they gave him a “no”.

One of the judges, songwriter Paul Adam, told Nicki Chapman: “He has talent, but I’m not sure if he’s the right person to fit into a five-piece band or even a 100-piece band.”

The following year, Darius cut off his ponytail and returned to the TV screens to take third place on the first series of Pop Idol.

The show was won by Will Young with Gareth Gates taking second place.

In the semi-final week of the competition, six million people voted, with Gates winning 39.8% of the votes, Young on 39.3% and Darius on 20.9%.

The result eliminated the former Popstars contestant.

Among Darius’ memorable performances were his covers of Tom Jones’s hit It’s Not Unusual and Atomic Kitten’s Whole Again.

Despite coming third, he was still offered a record deal by music tycoon and talent show host Simon Cowell.

Fans were surprised when Darius turned down the offer and decided to collaborate with Grammy-winning U2 and Rolling Stones producer Steve Lillywhite.

His debut single, Colourblind, was released in July 2002 and went straight to number one.

The album it featured on, Dive In, also reached the UK top 10.

He went on to have four more UK top 10 singles over the next three years – Rushes, Incredible (What I Meant To Say), Kinda Love and Live Twice.

Speaking in 2014, Darius told Hello magazine that not hooking up with Cowell was the “obvious thing to do” and that the controversial decision had led to his success in the music industry.

“When Simon Cowell offered me a contract and I turned it down, it seemed like the obvious thing to do,” he said.

“I understand why people thought I was mad to do it, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have a number one with Colourblind.

“I would just have been doing covers and then nobody would have heard of me ever again.”

The singer-songwriter later had a successful theatre career, appearing in West End shows such as Guys And Dolls, Gone With The Wind and Funny Girl.

He also performed as Billy Flynn in Chicago, opposite Ugly Betty star America Ferrera.

Speaking about his role as Flynn, the actor said he had based his portrayal of the character on his old mentor and Pop Idol judge.

“He’s the consummate businessman and a wonderful guy and there’s a lot of Simon Cowell in Billy Flynn in terms of the way he approaches things and I recognise that in terms of the character,” he said.

He credited Cowell with persuading him to take on the role in the first place, saying he was “incredibly grateful” for the opportunities he had been given and “to be able to call Simon Cowell a friend”.

Darius won the first series of ITV’s Popstar To Operastar contest in 2010, beating Bernie Nolan of the Nolan Sisters in a close final.

The show saw him duet with tenor Rolando Villazón on the song The Impossible Dream and helped him land his first major opera role.

Darius performed in the first ever opera at London’s O2 Arena as the bullfighter Escamillo in a one-off production of Carmen.

Opera singer Katherine Jenkins, who mentored him on the show, wrote on Instagram she had “great memories” of coaching him.

He also made a brief foray into Hollywood as a co-executive producer on the 2016 horror film Imperium, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Darius was hospitalised in 2015 after drinking water from the River Thames.

The singer was promoting a water filter for a charity in which he demonstrated the product.

Using a bottle top filter from the charity Fresh2o, he made himself ill, unaware that it was a prototype. His brain later swelled up and he fell into a coma.

Speaking to the Sunday Post, he said: “In order to raise funds to get the water filters to Africa, we did a demonstration video down at the Thames next to a sewage outlet.

“The filters remove 99.99% of all known water-borne pathogens, bacteria and viruses.

“So I drank the water for the video and raised the funds but when I went to Glasgow to see my mum for her birthday I collapsed.”

Darius said his father had saved his life.

He quickly took him to hospital where he was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis after picking up an inflammatory virus.

His mum, Avril, who was undergoing chemo and radiotherapy for breast cancer, stayed by his bedside after he fell into a coma.

When he woke up, he said it had felt “upside down and wrong” because she was unwell herself.

Doctors traced the cause of Darius’s illness, believing that his charity’s water filters might have been to blame.

“I suddenly got a shock, worrying that the water filters didn’t work and that they had been sent off and that other people could have died because of this,” he said.

“But other people who drank the water didn’t get sick and it was a huge relief when we found out that the water filter I used was a display model without a filter.”

Darius had also suffered a dangerous incident in 2010, when he broke his neck in a car crash.

The singer had been a passenger in a Porsche when it hit a wall at 70mph after skidding on oil during a holiday in Spain.

It left him in a neck brace and he told Hello! magazine that he felt “like the luckiest man alive” after a nurse told him he had been 3mm away from death or paralysis.

The singer was treated with daily physiotherapy but turned down an operation recommended by doctors over concerns that it would damage his vocal cords.

In 2010, Darius announced that he’d changed his surname to Campbell, saying he was very “proud” of his Scottish heritage and felt compelled to do so after his Scottish grandfather sang a song that brought tears to his eyes.

He told the Daily Record at the time that his real name was Darius Campbell-Danesh and revealed it wasn’t his decision to drop the Campbell from his name, stating that TV producers made the decision for him.

He changed it back in 2019 to Darius Danesh, in a Father’s Day tribute to his father, Dr Booth Danesh describing him as his “number one hero”.

Darius had several high-profile relationships, although his most prominent was his marriage to the Canadian actress and model Natasha Henstridge.

The pair married in 2011 but later made the “mutual decision” to split.

Darius met his former wife when he moved from Scotland to the US and became a step-dad to her two young sons.

He previously told the Herald newspaper that it was a “turbulent” relationship, and Darius was devastated when they filed for divorce a few years later.

After their split, Darius described it as a “grieving period.”

He told the Herald: “You see, you don’t break up with one person, you break up with three.

“And in some ways, it’s like a death.”

Darius was also linked to the model Daisy Lowe and the actress Jacqui Ainsley, before she married movie director Guy Ritchie.

After both of his parents were diagnosed with cancer and recovered, he became a supporter of several charities, including Cancer Research UK.

Darius died at the age of 41 after he was found unresponsive in bed in his US apartment on 11 August.

His cause of death in Rochester, Minnesota, is not yet known.

A statement from his family said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Darius Campbell Danesh.

“The local police department have confirmed that there were no signs of intent or suspicious circumstances. The cause of his sudden death is unknown at this stage, while medical examinations continue.

“We ask that you kindly respect our wishes for privacy at this time whilst we come to terms with the tragic loss of our son and brother.”