Leaving the limelight

When the new series of Fame Academy began on Saturday night, David Sneddon, last year's winner, tuned in with more than a passing interest. As he watched the show, "the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I had a serious case of goosebumps which I can't really explain," he says, face erupting into that familiar, toothy grin.

Sneddon hasn't even watched the tapes of his own performance on the show, "so it's really weird to see other people up there, trying to get into the Academy. Watching it makes it seem so unreal."

Since becoming the Fame Academy winner last year and walking away with the biggest prize in pop - a £1 million recording deal with Mercury Records, plus a year's stay in a £900,000 flat in St John's Wood and the use of a Fame Academy Audi TT convertible - Sneddon has had a mixed time of it.

His post-Fame Academy, self-penned single, Stop Living The Lie, predictably went to number one; he released his debut album, Seven Years - Ten Weeks, and he even got to play support for his idol, Elton John, at a gig in Hull a fortnight ago. And there's a new single due next month. But in truth, that has been it. The fanfare with which Sneddon's emergence into the limelight was announced after he won 3.5 million votes from the public has come to a somewhat damp end.

"I don't want to be negative," he says, "my time as the Fame Academy winner has been absolutely amazing. But the whole celebrity lifestyle has been a bit of a burden; it's just not me, I don't have this need to show off, play a role that people want me to play. I like myself - why would I want to change now?

"Some of the perks have been amazing, though. But now my time's up, as it were, I'm determined to rent the flat a little longer, until I find something a little bit more my style outside London. It's a bit of a thrill to have all that space and suddenly have celebrity neighbours like Amanda Holden pop round to say hello. It's been like a fantasy, to be honest. And there's no way I'm giving up the car, I've fallen in love with it, so I'm going to have to buy that from the record company."

But still Sneddon seems a bit of a square peg in a round hole. Reality TV talent shows have long been accused of being part of the whole "dumbing down" culture that has afflicted all areas of entertainment over the past few years. What is rarely mentioned is how such talent shows affect the lives of those they thrust forward.

Unknowns are shoved into the limelight and expected to succeed in a tough business without really having the wherewithal to cope. Recording contracts are handed out seemingly to anyone who enters these shows, and the end result is that many get at least one hit single before drifting back into obscurity.

As Sneddon himself admits, it has been a tough year. "I was suddenly thrust into a world I had little understanding of and felt so bewildered, but everyone has helped me through it. And I've had the strength and good sense to play down the showbiz aspect of it all."

That Sneddon does shun the celebrity merry-go-round of fame can probably be attributed to the stability of his upbringing. While many who seek the limelight often do so to fill the gaps in their emotional life, Sneddon, who comes from a close-knit family, doesn't need the fame and indeed appears to dismiss it. He is happiest creating, writing, staying behind the scenes almost. Superficial glamour appears to leave him cold. "I've gone to a few parties like the Brit Awards aftershow party, but really I prefer going out with my mates or having a cosy night in. The people at these showbiz dos aren't my real friends."

Not for Sneddon the Gareth Gates route of turning up at celebrity bashes, becoming inebriated and bedding down with some inappropriate model.

Despite his undoubted talent, to anyone who knows him, he's simply "that nice boy David", and that, perhaps, is the problem. Rightly or wrongly, we want our pop stars to be stars; we yearn for them to be pictured on front pages in various states of inebriation, we crave those illicit sex stories and trashed hotel rooms. The naughtiest thing Sneddon has been photographed doing, for instance, was carrying a pizza home for his girlfriend, Eleanor.