Paul Potts: 'I have forgiven school bullies'

Paul Potts has forgiven the bullies who made his life a misery at school.

The Britain's Got Talent winner said he was regularly abused by classmates but had learned to put the past behind him.

He told The Sun: "It was pretty bad. They used to beat me up. I even thought of throwing myself down some stairs one day - not to kill myself but to make people feel sorry for me.

"One of them wrote to me recently apologising and asking me to forgive him. I said there was nothing to forgive, it was fine. And it is. As Rudyard Kipling said, if you can treat those two impostors triumph and disaster just the same, then you'll be a man."

The opera singer's debut album One Chance topped the UK chart last July and has sold 3 million copies.

Britain's Got Talent returns tomorrow at 7:45pm on ITV1.

> In Pictures: 'Britain's Got Talent' auditions