X Factor’s Wagner leaving UK to open hair transplant clinic so he can ‘die in peace’

The X Factor legend Wagner is a hero to the British public – but now he is leaving our shores to make a major career change.

The 66-year-old former PE teacher, who became famous overnight back in 2010 when he auditioned for the ITV singing contest, is going back to his homeland of Brazil.

Wagner didn’t get through to the live shows at first but was sensationally brought back by judge Louis Walsh to join the over 28s category and remarkably reached the quarter finals.

While Wagner is happy living near Birmingham with his wife Lydia, who is 36 years his junior, and their kids – he has made a sacrifice to provide for their future.

Speaking exclusively to The Mirror, the performer, full name Wagner Fiuza-Carrilho, explains: “I love it here but I am going to Brazil to start a hair transplant business.”

The singer, who became popular with his remixes of classic songs such as She Bangs and Love Shack, has personal experience of hair transplants after going bald in 2013 and having two separate procedures.

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The X Factor star was known on the show for his lovely long locks, but his hairline receded and the hair he did have started to thin.

Wagner went to the Vinci Hair Clinic to transfer healthy hair follicles from the back of the head to the areas that needed them – a hole at the top of his head and the front.

“I’m living proof that hair transplants work. I had mine eight years ago and I haven’t lost anything. I lose more from the beard than my head,” he says.

He became very good friends with owner Salvar Björnsson, who has 40 clinics around the world and is letting Wagner open a new franchise in the north east of Brazil where he grew up.

“So you’re asking me to go back to paradise, palm trees, 12 months of sea, to go and make money? I’m going to be making so much money I’ll be coming back to the UK. I’m only a flight away,” he explains.

“Once the clinic is up and running I can employ a manager who speaks English and once I die, Lydia will communicate with the manager and I can die in peace now.”

At first, Wagner will stay in Brazil for at least three or four months while he finds a premises, gets cracking with the decorating, finds some staff and trains them up.

Not that he needs one at the moment, but Wagner will be able to get another hair transplant whenever he likes.

He is making a massive sacrifice by leaving the UK, but the major career change is to provide for partner Lydia and their kids.

The couple met in December 2010 at a gig in Stourbridge, Dudley, just weeks after Wagner was booted out of the X Factor.

He was introduced to her by one of his former karate students – and Lydia has her own karate club in Kingswinford.

“As soon as I came out of the TV show I met Lydia,” explains Wagner, who then told us what made him fall in love. “I would say not only her beauty but also her character.

“She looked to be very honest and innocent, she had no evil. She was such a beautiful soul and I thought, ‘I’m lucky, she’s beautiful’.”

When asked about their 36-year age gap, Wagner adds: “No, it doesn’t bother me as the spirit doesn’t get old. I only know I’m 66 because it says it on my birth certificate.”

The pair are parents to two children, with Wagner admitting words can’t describe how “magical” it is being a father, but says it’s too early to tell if they will follow in his musical footsteps.

Wagner is still performing gigs but not as many as before, confessing he’s found it hard to get back in the same flow again.

He has made another source of income, personalised video messages, and believes he was “the inventor of this business” before the likes of Cameo came along.

After doing tonnes of video messages for special events for free, Lydia suggested he should start charging.

At first Wagner thought “she was off her head” and didn’t think it would work, but together they have made it into a business

“A lot of people say ‘you must be desperate and skint’. I was just thinking I’m doing all these requests for free,” the singer explains.

“Someone said I was ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’. But soon everybody started paying and understood that was a fair business.

“The UK market was all mine. I was like the people’s messenger. During Christmas sometimes I was doing 60 to 70 videos per day. It was too much, I became a slave to my own videos. It was 365 days a year.”

Wagner says he is the “British people’s messenger” but now he sells less videos than before because there is so much competition.

“Nowadays there are different platforms with thousands of competitors and celebrities,” he says. “They are all doing it. The market was only mine and now it’s shared amongst thousands of competitors.”

As well as taking video requests, Wagner is also available to be hired out for stag and hen dos, weddings, or club nights.

There is no doubting his continued popularity, with one fan honking his horn and waving at Wagner while he was stood outside his house after this interview.

He says: “It is a wonderful thing. There’s nothing better than being loved. Wherever I go people love me and that is a great feeling. I can only be grateful to the British people for the way they have welcomed me.”

Wagner has also lifted the lid on his time on The X Factor, where he got all the way to the quarter finals before losing his place.

He still speaks to some of his fellow contestants, including Sam Bailey, Mary Byrne, Rebecca Ferguson and Tracy Cohen, as well as keeping a pair of sunglasses given to him by One Direction’s Zayn Malik.

Discussing the experience, he says: “When you are on The X Factor you are like a prisoner. You can’t go anywhere because you become their property, their asset for the show.

“At 7am you’d have to get ready to go to the studio, then be recording, go to interviews, the show was massive. Then we’d come back home at 11am. So it was a full time job.

“There was some tension amongst the other contestants but I was never tense because I didn’t expect to get that far. I was grateful for every day I was there.

“When a samurai goes to a battle he has no fear because their attitude is ‘I’m dead already and the door to my life is my opponent’. So I thought ‘I’m out of the show already, if I stay it’s a bonus’.”

Wagner is in terrific shape right now and visits the gym six or seven times a week, so looks different to how he did on the show.

“When I went I was skinny. While I was on the show I couldn’t train or jog. I couldn’t go jogging on the street,” he explains.

“I put weight on very easily, as I was eating good food and couldn’t exercise, soon I built up a belly that took me a lot of hard work to get rid of.”

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