The Wanted star Nathan Sykes walked away from his solo record deal after his bandmate, Tom Parker, was diagnosed with cancer.

The singer – who recently stepped back into the spotlight with plans to release his second solo LP, the star’s first since 2016’s ‘Unfinished Business’ – revealed in a new interview that he asked to be let out of his contract to embark on a final tour with the band following Tom’s glioblastoma diagnosis.

He told The Sun’s Bizarre column: “Everything stopped. It was that afternoon after I got the call about Tom, I rang the label and I said, ‘I need you to let me out of this contract’.

“And they were like, ‘You’re walking away from a full album?’. I was like, ‘Yeah. I’ve got to. There will hopefully be more times in my life where I get to write an album.

“This tour and this celebration of the band needs to be done now,” he added. “I was never going to put myself over Tom in that situation.”

The band reunited in September 2021, months before Tom died of complications from glioblastoma on March 30, 2022, at which time Nathan had spent four years working on his sophomore effort.

But following the devastating loss, the Over And Over Again hitmaker decided to ditch the whole thing and start again.

He explained: “After Tom passed, I was listening to some of the stuff that I’d written previously for the album and I was like, ‘No, I’m going to can the whole lot’.

“You don’t know how short and unfair life can be. And I think it’s about making the most of every moment that we have.

“If you want to do something, get on and do it. That’s what led me to be like, ‘No, I’m going to write an album and let’s do it independently’.”