Will Young has a "man crush" on Sir Tom Jones.

Will Young

Will Young

The 'Joy' singer was saddened when the 'It's Not Unusual' hitmaker slammed his recent axing as a coach on 'The Voice' because he thinks the veteran star is "amazing".

He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "It was so unlike him (to speak out). I'm sad if he thinks he's been mistreated, I've got a bit of a man crush on Tom Jones, I just wanna be his best friend. I just think he's amazing. He's such a cool dude."

The 36-year-old star feels particularly bad for Tom after his own bad experience on 'The Voice', when he was led to believe he would be one of the coaches when the show started, only for the slot to be given to The Script frontman Danny O'Donoghue.

He added: "I really empathise with him, I had an experience with 'The Voice' when I got given it as a judge and they took it away the next day! Well they can. What it makes me realise is TV is a very cruel business.

"In fact, TV is probably the cruelest business of the lot and then music and then film I'd say. The harshness of the TV world, we cannot forget that, it was sad to hear that he was upset."

Will - who shot to fame after winning 'Pop Idol' in 2002 - was upset not to be a part of 'The Voice' because the ethos of the show appeals to him

He said: "I like 'The Voice', because they mentor people and I think there's pastoral care. I'm really interested in mentoring young musicians and younger musicians. And I do it in my own life. I was talking to someone the other day actually.

"I do workshops, and singing workshops, I pretend I'm like a really good teacher and I don't know what I'm doing, I'm like 'You're late!' I did it quite a lot when I was on my break. I went back to my old school in Norwich."

Will's new single 'Joy' is out this week and his sixth album '85% Proof' is available now.