The Pop Idol star, who went on to have a series of chart and West End hits, died at the age of 41.
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.
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.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%.Among Darius' memorable performances were his covers of Tom Jones's hit It's Not Unusual and Atomic Kitten's Whole Again.
"When Simon Cowell offered me a contract and I turned it down, it seemed like the obvious thing to do," he said. 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. 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.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.
"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."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.