Gareth Gates shed his squeaky-clean Pop Idol persona as he stripped off during a racy Manchester Pride performance on Saturday night.
It seems a rebrand is now on the cards for the 42-year-old singer, who went shirtless before pulling off his jeans in a dramatic move to reveal tight black boxers.
Gates also wore a pair of pink bottomless chaps that showed off his behind as he put on an animated display and showed off his best dance moves.
For another look, he wore grey jeans and a white vest, lifting it to show off his toned and tanned torso to the crowd.
The singer was just 17 when he won over millions of fans with his spiky hair and boyish charm on the talent show Pop Idol in 2002, an image he has channelled throughout his career.
Documentary reunion
The performance comes after his ex-girlfriend Katie Price said last month that he "still looks fit" as she reflected on their television reunion.
The former glamour model, now 48, was 21 and six months pregnant with her son Harvey when she took the pop star's virginity 24 years ago.
Gates initially denied the relationship but later conceded it was true, assuming Price had sold the story to the press.
The singer recently appeared alongside some of Price's other ex-boyfriends in her Sky documentary Katie Price: Nothing to Hide.
Asked during a press event for the show who surprised her most during the documentary, Price named Gates and admitted she still fancies him.
Speaking on Hits Radio's Breakfast Show, Price said: "Imagine you was with someone twenty five years ago and then suddenly they ghost you and you don't really know why. And now I know why.
"People in his head and he thought I'd set something up when I actually hadn't. Then twenty five years later and he finds out it was nothing to do with me and you see his reaction. I think people think it was just like a one night stand with me and him when it wasn't."
Selling stories
Radio host Will Best suggested Gates was relieved to learn the truth.
"You can tell how much he cared about you, and I guess still does because he's relieved when he finds out," Best said. "It's like he's been wrong for all this time, you'd think people might be like, 'Oh no damn it,' but he's relieved. He's going to reframe you in his mind, and it's a positive thing."
Price replied: "Put it this way, if I was his girlfriend watching what he said I wouldn't be happy. Am I right or wrong? And he still looks fit I must say."
Speaking previously at the official launch of the documentary series, Price told the crowd she was shocked Gates would finally speak up after claiming he had ghosted her.
"Imagine meeting someone 25 years ago and then they sort of ghost you. You don't know why and then you go forward 25 years and then you get the answers," she said.
"Because he had thought I'd done something which I didn't do and now, he finds out, it really wasn't me. The shock on his face and the shock on mine, everyone was like, 'You and Gareth, that was the one that got away!'"
Learning curve
During an appearance on the Great Company podcast last month, host Jamie Laing asked Gates if Price took his virginity.
"No comment," Gates replied. "I'll just say I was extremely inexperienced with a girl who was extremely experienced. I could see why she thought that."
Gates said he had never spoken about his relationships before.
"I believe that relationships are between two people and I couldn't believe that somebody else was selling stories about very, very intimate details," he said. "And I was shocked and I learned a lot about that, about people and about the industry, and about trust I guess. I would never have ever done that to her or to anybody else, and so it was a real learning curve for me."
He added: "I felt exactly the same at the time. And it was a shame because she's a really lovely girl. But I couldn't quite believe somebody would do that I guess."
The singer said the media attention made him wary of trusting people in the industry.
"I became sort of very wary of trusting people after that because that was such a big thing on such a massive, massive scale, it was everywhere," he said. "It became the main thing in every interview. Everybody just wanted to know about that and not about my brand new album which I'd worked tirelessly on."
"I was like, 'That's a shame I'm now having to talk about this when actually I just want to be an artist.' That was tough," he continued. "It just kind of made me extremely wary of people in the industry I guess. You become very careful about what you text people, what you say to people. I was a boy at the time, I wasn't even an adult."
Price had previously spoken about the romance on the Anything Goes with James English podcast in 2024, confirming she took his virginity when she was six months pregnant.
When the host shook his head, Price laughed and said: "What? You're asking me. What you looking at, because I was pregnant? Just because I'm pregnant, don't say I can't have a boyfriend."
