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The mixed-race singer said that despite being a well-behaved teenager in school uniform, officers would search his bag and interrogate him. Danyl, 38, said he had no idea he was being discriminated against until white friends told him it was “not normal” to be quizzed at random. The 38-year-old son of a black delivery driver and a white shop display worker, told the Daily Express he was used to being targeted by bigots.
He said days after his birth, his mother Maria’s mid-wife assumed she did not want a mixed-race child and asked if she was having him adopted.
But he also witnessed racism from his father’s Jamaican parents, who barred Maria from Sunday dinners at their home because she was white.
Danyl, who now has his own chat podcast, said the discriminatory and unfair police treatment began when he was growing up in leafy Berkshire.
“When I was a kid, I did get stopped by the police a lot,” he said.
“I was never hostile, I was never upset about it. I couldn’t understand why they did it.
“At first, I thought it was just a thing which happened to everyone – until I asked my white friends and they said ‘no’.
“I was quite a clean cut boy – I wasn’t into anything dodgy or naughty. It would happen at least a couple of times a year, and it didn’t actually stop until I was 27.
“They would search my bag or ask me what I was doing or where I was going.
“A couple of occasions it was in the morning – I was in school uniform. It was a nice school with a blazer and a jumper and a tie.”
“My mum was annoyed if I told her, so I sometimes didn’t. I never worried because honestly, I thought it happened to everyone.
“As teenagers – we could be troublesome. It never occurred to me that there doing it because of race.”
The ex-teacher from Reading said his brushes with racism began after the mid-wife’s remark to his mother.
“I’m not sure how my mum took it,” he said. “But I know she scoffs at it now and finds it hilarious that it would ever be said to her.
“It seemed to be unacceptable to be a mixed race couple like my mum and dad.”
“I remember my mum and dad telling me they would go to the Black Cap in Camden or to Heaven.
“These were gay bars and clubs and stuff, and it was the only place that no-one judged them. It was a fair playing ground.“
He added: “One of the things I really struggled with is that my grandparents on my dad’s side – from Jamaica – were not happy that he married a white girl.
“So my mum never came to dinner – she was not allowed. They had no other grandchildren.
“They made us food, we watched little House on The Prairie on a Sunday, but mum wasn’t there, so I felt conflicted.”
Danyl was tipped for runaway success after his mentor Simon Cowell praised his audition for X-Factor series 6 in 2009.
He came fourth behind Joe McElderry, Olly Murs and Stacey Solomon, and won a standing ovation for his version of With A Little Help from My Friends.
More than 400 complaints were made to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom after Dannii Minogue made an ill-judged gag about his bisexuality.
But after the explosion of publicity, his profile dropped as he ploughed on with more steady, lower profile work.
“Though people think I haven’t been as successful as One Direction – who has – it doesn’t take away the fact that I have a career.
“I work in this industry and I felt so unbelievably lucky to have done the show.
“It gave me opportunities and chances in life that I could only ever have dreamt of.”
Season two of Danyl’s Best Thing podcast is available to download from November 9.
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