X Factor's Wagner tells all

X Factor hopeful Wagner took a break from hectic rehersals to speak to Sunita Patel – and even serenaded her with a Latin love song

Wagner Carrilho will be like a Bat out of Hell as he sings for survival in tonight's Halloween-themed show – after revealing his trademark medallions are his lucky charms.

He told how the Black Country has won his heart – and shared more secrets of the X Factor house.

And he even found time to serenade me in Latin with a song translated as " I could die of love."

As bookies slash the odds of 54 year old Wagner winning the contest as online campaigns spring up in his support, he believes his happy-go-lucky outlook is the secret of his success after a struggle to find work.

"I try to have a humorous approach to life and maybe that is what people like about me," says the fans' favourite.

"I try to be happy, although life can be very sad. Maybe that is what has been identified as infectious, because I try to be happy no matter what."

Wagner, who is rumoured to be singing Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf in tonight's show, reveals he has struck up an unlikely friendship with X Factor girl group member Geneva Lane, aged 20, who is helping to look after his trademark long locks.

The well-groomed Brazilian allows the Belle Amie singer to style his hair.

"I tell you who I love very much. Geneva," he confesses.

"Since bootcamp we have been very good friends. She dries my hair. Whatever I am eating she comes and bites it. Whatever she is eating I go and bite it. She is a lovely girl. She is a wonderful person," he enthuses.

He doesn't have any lucky underpants or the like, but he does have two medallions and a crucifix which he considers his lucky charms.

"One was handmade for my father. My father died 28-years-ago, so I kept that. No-one has the same. I have another one that was handmade for me which has the face of Christ on it – and I have a cross."

After decades as a karate instructor and PE teacher a shoulder injury put paid to his career. He started off by singing in the smoky bars, pubs and clubs of the Black Country and beyond, before X Factor fame.

"I had to close down my karate school in Old Hill because I couldn't teach. The business was never profitable anyway but my shoulders just got worse," he continues.

"I have always sung since I was a child. My father was a singer who became an entertainer. I had an Italian godfather who was an opera singer. The moment I started speaking I started singing.

"After the doctors told me to stop karate I thought the last thing I wanted was to live on benefits or to be a nobody. I have a son, and I didn't want my son to grow up thinking, 'my dad doesn't work'.

"While I was having these operations, I was applying for jobs but I wasn't getting anything. I think it was a combination of my age and the recession. And if you are out of a job for a year, employers start to think 'there's something wrong with this guy'.

"So, I started singing in pubs and restaurants just to realise that wasn't for me. When you sing you don't have a stage, you are shoved into a corner and you have to sing from that corner with people passing by with pints of lager, and I just thought, 'this is not for me. I need to go to the next level, whatever the next level is'.

"And I thought if I go to the X Factor and if I go through some rounds on the television, I will achieve some recognition and I might be able to perform in better places.

"That was my intention. So, it is quite amazing this support I am getting, the reaction I am getting from people. I never expected to go this far."

"The Black Country to me is home," he says. "My favourite areas of the Black Country are the streets where my friends live – in the Dudley area – Netherton, Pensnett, Brierley Hill."

His dream is to sing "Una Furtiva Lagrima" from Italian composer Domenico Donizetti's opera L'elisir D'amore (The Elixir of Love), for an audience. From Enrico Caruso to Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, and Giuseppe di Stefano – he is inspired by "all the great tenors", he tells me.

The light of his own life is his three-year-old son. "I am doing this because of my son, because I love him very much and I want to be able to provide for him.

"I love him more than anything in the world," he says.