BRITAIN'S Got Talent semi finalist Antonio 'Popeye' Francis has died at the age of 54 after suffering a stroke.

The talent show star reached the semi-finals of the 2011 series with a bizarre routine - popping out his eyeballs to the beat of music.

The charismatic performer passed away on Saturday after a bout of illness, his devastated family confirmed.

He was one of the most memorable BGT acts after telling the judges his weird eyeball-popping talent "created one night stands".

A message from his family said Antonio, who briefly moved to Barbados before returning to Britain, faced a number of health battles in the years after the show.

His son Dan Francis said: "A week ago a family friend found him in his room on the floor unconscious where he had a stroke.

"What's crazy is he was there for at least six days so he'd survived for at least six days before we got him into the hospital and for the first two days he was breathing by himself.

"This morning we woke up and I saw him take his last breath and then he stopped breathing."

The family is now raising money to fund a funeral for Antonio in Barbados.

Dan explained: "One of my dad's wishes which he's been saying for the last two years, 'If I pass I want to be buried in Barbados' and that's going to cost a crazy amount of money so what we're doing is we're going to try and raise as much money as possible.

"If we can get enough then we will send him to Barbados... We would love to bury his body in Barbados."

Antonio had suffered memory loss, a minor stroke, high blood pressure, heart failure and other organ issues before his death.

He also suffered a number of problems due to his declining health and ended up sleeping rough after coming back to London following trips to visit his sick grandmother.

Dan added: "Over the last 10 years he's been in and out of hospital 90 per cent of the time.

"He was back and forth from Barbados where he was staying with our grandma and he started losing his memory.

"He randomly came back to London, we didn't know why because he had nowhere to stay so he started sleeping rough.

"We found out he was sleeping on buses at night and staying round friends houses and travelling up and down the country.

"We didn't really know what was wrong, because he wouldn't tell us, plus he was losing his memory.

"We managed to get him a temporary place in Harlow."

A fundraising page had already hit £1,500 of a £5,000 target on Monday, just one day after it was launched.