Singing priest Father Ray Kelly has revealed the truth about his ‘record deal’ past.
At the second round of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent auditions, we met Father Ray Kelly, a 64-year-old Parish Priest, from Oldcastle, Co. Meath in Ireland.
He said in the show: “I was singing at a wedding four years ago at home and it went viral on YouTube. The phone started ringing… you’ve got a thousand hits, two thousand hits… for a guy, 60 years of age, I didn’t know what was happening.”
In the episode, Ray Kelly performed a touching cover of Everybody Hurts’ by R.E.M.
“I watch Britain’s Got Talent every year, I love the show. It offers you the opportunity to sing in front of the Royal Family,” Father Ray said. “I’m hoping I get the BGT audience on my side tonight.”
With four yeses, Father Ray Kelly was put through to the next round and a step closer to singing for the Queen.
But since his audition, the priest has been hit with claims he’s already a ‘professional’ singer.
The Sun reported that he had previously signed a record deal and released an album.
Clearing up the truth, Father Ray confirmed he did once have a record deal but it’s now “all gone”.
He told ITV’s This Morning: “At one stage, yes, but it’s all gone now. It finished in 2015 in fact.”
A spokesperson for Britain’s Got Talent confirmed: “Father Ray’s recording deal ended in 2015.”
Meanwhile, speaking to The Sun, Father Ray suggested he was dropped for being ‘too old’.
“They basically told me to p*** off, ‘We’ve have had enough of you. Nah, singing priests, we’ve had enough of that kind of stuff’,” he claimed. “I suppose that I just wasn’t Ed Sheeran or Hozier or one of those guys who sells millions.
“You see, my audience is a CD audience, not a download audience. It would be people aged from 50 to 70 years-old. That audience is not a teenage audience like Ed Sheeran.”
Britain’s Got Talent 2018 airs Saturday nights on ITV.
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