Nicole Hiatt’s X Factor story appeared in the SUNDAY MIRROR newspaper at the weekend.
This year’s X Factor has already proved controversial and many people have recently asked if contestant Ceri Rees, a widow who has appeared four times on the show and clearly cannot sing, was too vulnerable to appear again – with a Twitter campaign claiming she was ridiculed for the ratings because Producers believe she ‘made good TV.’ This follows the Sunday Mirror’s investigation into what goes on at Bootcamp and Featureworld interviewee gave a peek into what happened when she got through.
In a Sunday Mirror story that went over two pages, Nicole, 24, described how incredibly before Bootcamp she was quizzed on her love life and whether or not she would want to meet someone during the show. She claims she wasn’t the only one – with people who didn’t want a romance finding they did not go through. She also says that those contestants who acted more outrageously during a jacuzzi party were more likely to be picked – she believes this is because their antics are more likely to boost the ratings.
And while the show seems ultra glamorous on TV, Nicole didn’t find that to be so at Bootcamp. “We had to wait hours for our coach to arrive to pick us up to go to the hotel,” she told me, “and then so the TV crew could get enough footage of the coach journey to Bootcamp, we kept going round the same roundabouts. I kept on thinking we were there – and then we’d drive off again to get some more footage. It was exhausting.”
When she finally arrived at the luxury hotel, she expected a hot meal. But instead she claims the contestants were simply given a ‘packed lunch’ consisting of a few sandwiches and a carton of juice.
But most disappointingly, she says she never even got the chance to sing. “The day after the jacuzzi party they called everyone at breakfast and said they had an announcement to make,” she says, “I was still in my pyjamas but wasn’t even allowed to change. I couldn’t believe it when they divided us into two groups. My group was then told we were going home – I wouldn’t have minded but I’d been rehearsing for the Bootcamp audition for weeks and yet I hadn’t even sung a note.”
X Factor told the Sunday Mirror it is the toughest Bootcamp yet – but for Nicole, she was left wondering what the point of it was…
This is the second time Nicole has told her story. Read about the other newspaper deal I found for Nicole here: X Factor is just Sex Factor
Whether you have an X Factor story to sell, or just want to sell your real-life story and would like the chance to appear in multiple newspapers, contact me here: Sell My Story
