Britain’s Got Talent’s Antonio ‘Popeye’ Francis has sadly passed away.
Antonio became an iconic Britain’s Got Talent act when he appeared on the show in 2011 with his unique eye popping talent.
He made it through to the live shows and continued to make regular appearances on spin-off show More Talent.
Tragically, Antonio lost his life this week after suffering a stroke, his son Dan has revealed.
“A week ago a family friend found him in his room on the floor unconscious where he had a stroke,” he said. “What’s crazy is he was there for at least six days so he’d survived for at least six days before we got him into the hospital and for the first two days he was breathing by himself.
“This morning we woke up and I saw him take his last breath and then he stopped breathing.”
Dan told The Sun newspaper that Antonio had been in and out of hospital “90 per cent of the time” and recently began to suffer memory loss.
Following his passing, Antonio’s family has set up a fundraising page to allow Antonio to be buried in Barbados, where his mum lives.
Dan said: “One of my dad’s wishes which he’s been saying for the last two years, ‘If I pass I want to be buried in Barbados’ and that’s going to cost a crazy amount of money so what we’re doing is we’re going to try and raise as much money as possible.
“If we can get enough then we will send him to Barbados… We would love to bury his body in Barbados.”
You can visit the fundraising page here.
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