Danyl Johnson

He’s noted as being one of Simon Cowell’s all time favourite auditionees, but the public interest in Danyl Johnson wasn’t, sadly, just about his singing talent during his time on the X Factor. It was all about who he was or wasn’t having relationships with. Within weeks of his first appearance on the show, the press had made up their mind that he was bisexual and that he fancied all four of the judges, Dannii, Cheryl, Simon and Louis. THEGAYUK’s editor Jake Hook took some time to talk with Danyl about one of British TV’s most awkward moments (the time that Dannii Minogue seemingly outed him on live, national TV), why Whitney Houston was not impressed with him and why having a dog helps you when you’re single.

- Jake Hook

Jake: So, since the X Factor, where have you been? What have you been doing? What’s going to be happening in 2017?

Danyl: I think Donald Trump is going to be taking over the world. It’s a different world in 2017. I think everyone thought 2016 was going to be tough, but 2017 looks even crazier.

Since the show? It’s been seven years, which is crazy to even think that it’s been that long. It’s just we finish the show, we go on tour, we play our own shows.

I thought, ‘I need to go and find myself’. Normally when people want to do that they want to go to India but I thought I wanted to find myself musically and see what I was doing so I decided to go to Nashville and just work with some amazing musicians and some really good music people, people that I like, not just randoms.

I did that for a little while, came back, played some more shows. I was bouncing around record deals with some lovely little labels and things just didn’t come together. Especially when you do a show like X Factor, it’s such a platform and you do get skipped to the head of the queue. Sometimes when you get skipped to the head of the queue, it doesn’t mean your name’s on the door.

It can be a little bit of, “ugh, God another one of those people.” I just felt, not lost, but just kind of like, “What am I doing?” It was really easy for me to just play shows. Because of what Simon said, about me on my audition, it has systematically made me still work to this day, which is lovely. I cannot really complain about that.

Jake: Obviously, Simon Cowell was incredibly nice, he was very, very complimentary about your voice...

Danyl: Yeah, crazy.