‘Where’ve you been?’ they asked. ‘What have you been doing? Why did you leave us? You didn’t even ring, nothing!’ I had to explain that my dad had taken me away from the school and the area and made me cut all ties with my friends. ‘Oh well!’ they said. ‘Do you want a drink?’ Suddenly it was as if we’d only seen each other yesterday.
I didn’t have much time for socializing, though, because my days were super busy with Zach, college and work. My course was full of workshops and we constantly put on little shows for the class, so there was a lot of preparation to do. Our one big production was the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods, which I love, because it’s got all the fairy tales rolled into one. It was my ideal musical. I played the witch, which is a really funny role. Her songs are hilarious. She half sings, half rasps and she’s extremely snappy and quick-witted. She was such fun to play.
The course combined lots of different elements, from studying plays to breaking down and analysing specific songs. So we put on Jack the Ripper for one module and sang ‘Happy Ending’ by Mica as a huge ensemble piece for another. It may have seemed a bit random at times, but it was brilliant and I learned so much about the essential elements of performance, singing and musical drama.
The months flew by and, before I knew it, the summer term was starting. It was April and the 2009 X Factor auditions were being held. I’d missed the auditions the year before, for obvious reasons, but now I felt it was the right time to try again. ‘Well, you go on your own this time,’ my mum said with a laugh. Not surprisingly, she couldn’t face another sixteen-hour wait. She’d had enough of queueing with thousands of X Factor hopefuls to last a lifetime.
Some of my friends had decided to audition, too, so we got the train to the O2 Arena the night before and arrived around midnight. There were already hundreds of people there. We waited in the freezing cold all through the night until the morning, jumping around to keep ourselves warm and talking to other people in the queue to find out what they were doing and how long they’d been there.
The next morning the judges came out for a few minutes, which made the crowds cheer. Oh, please, just let us in, me and my friends thought. We don’t care if we get through or not. We’ve been here for so long that we just want to come in.
Eventually we made it inside. The massive floor of the O2 Arena was dotted with polystyrene booths, each with a producer sitting inside, and you had to go into a booth and sing. Since I hadn’t got through with ‘Over The Rainbow’ the last two times, I decided to sing something different – ‘What A Wonderful World’ – which is a song I’ve always loved singing.
After I’d sung a few lines, the producer said, ‘Tell me a bit about yourself. You’ve got five seconds.’
‘I’m nineteen and I’m a student from Dagenham,’ I said. ‘My son’s called Zach. I’m really happy and excited to be here!’ That was it.
‘Yup,’ she said. ‘You’re through.’ Two of my friends, Lynette and Shakira, also got through, but unfortunately the others didn’t.
The next stage was another audition with producers, this time at the Emirates Stadium. My mum came to that one. I sang the same song and got through again. After that, I was shown into another room, where I met some more producers. Then I was sent home to wait for a phone call to tell me whether or not I was through to the next stage. I had no idea if they liked me or not and I tried not to think about it too much. When the phone call came I was told, ‘We’d really like you to come to an audition with Simon and the judges.’
‘OK,’ I said calmly, while thinking, What the heck! I put down the phone. ‘Help! What do I wear?’ I yelled at my mum.
After trying on everything in my wardrobe, I decided to wear a pair of blue shorts. ‘They’re a bit short,’ my mum said cautiously.
‘Yes, but I’ll wear them with trainers,’ I said. ‘I won’t wear them with heels.’ So I wore shorts, trainers and a white polo that I was in love with at the time. Back then I used to love my polos; I dressed a bit like a boy golfer.
My family came with me to this audition, as we didn’t think we’d be waiting around all day this time. Unfortunately, though, we waited and waited and waited, and I was the last person to be seen. It didn’t show me as last on telly, but I was the last person in the whole room to go in. At one point someone said, ‘Oh, we don’t know if we’re going to be able to see you today after all.’
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Why not?’ After sitting around all day with my family, burping Zach, getting baby sick on my top and baby food on my shorts, they weren’t going to be able to see me? By now, Zach was not happy. He was crying his eyes out.
Eventually, a woman came in and said, ‘Come on, we’re going,’ and I was escorted through to the stage, leaving Zach behind with my family, still crying his eyes out.
When I went on stage Simon Cowell said, ‘Hello.’
‘Hiya,’ I replied.
‘And what’s your name?’
‘Stacey.’
‘Where are you from, Stacey?’
‘Dagenham.’
‘No!’ he said, laughing. He asked me my age and then said, ‘What’s the dream here?
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘To win this.’
‘Yuh? Are you any good?’
‘I hope so. You might not think I am.’
‘Who has told you you’re any good?’
‘Sometimes my mum does, and my friends, obviously.’
Simon smirked. Oh no, he thinks I’m an idiot, I thought.
I started singing ‘What A Wonderful World’. The audience seemed to like it, but Simon put his hand up quite early on in the song. Oh no, he thinks I’m rubbish! I thought.
All the judges were really nice. Cheryl spoke first. ‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I had a preconceived idea, but I didn’t expect you to be that good.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. It was really strange to be standing there in front of these super famous people.
Louis was next. ‘Stacey, I totally agree with Cheryl. I didn’t expect your voice to be that good,’ he said.
‘I can’t believe you’re saying my name,’ I burst out. Everyone laughed, but I meant it. It felt weird to have people like Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh calling me by name.
Dannii was the next to comment. ‘It was a real surprise,’ she said. ‘It’s so cute, your personality and the voice, and you didn’t falter anywhere.’
So three of them liked me, but what was Simon Cowell going to say? ‘I have to be honest with you, that performance really took me by surprise,’ he said. ‘I think that was really, really good.’ Oh my God!
Each judge said yes to me going through to the next stage. ‘Congratulations,’ Simon said.
Yes! I thought, and I ran off the stage to find practically everyone in my family crying.
The presenter Dermot O’Leary came up and said, ‘Well done.’ And every single producer, presenter and member of the crew was so nice to me.
‘Do you want to go to the pod and talk about it with your family?’ they said.
‘Yeah!’ I replied, and we all bundled into the pod and started talking at once, bubbling over with excitement.
And that was it for me and The X Factor … until the summer, when the next set of auditions would begin.
Soon after the X Factor audition, I went on an exchange programme to America with college. It was so good. We went to Ohio and Ohio came to London, and we put on the musical Oh! What A Lovely War over there and over here. In Ohio, we stayed in the college fire department, where we were surrounded by beefy men training to be firemen. We laughed so much when we were shown to our rooms. ‘Wow! Does it get any better?’ I didn’t kiss anyone while I was away, though. I still wasn’t interested in any of that. I was just having a really good time.
Oh! What a Lovely War is quite a weird musical to stage as it’s very dark and political and controversial. It’s a satire on World War One and features songs from that era, so wh
ile you’re singing these supposedly uplifting songs about staying strong through tough times, footage of death and destruction is screened on the backdrop behind you. The cast wore Pierrot outfits and the idea was that you changed your hat to denote your character or military rank when you were singing, which was an interesting way of doing things.
It was great to see a bit of America, although we were in a rather remote, desolate part of Ohio; there was only ever one road, and lots of tumbleweed drifting around. It was the kind of lazy place you’d expect to see somebody rocking in a chair on their wooden porch listening to country music. In other words, it was a little bit scary. There were drive-thru banks and drive-thru liquor stores and everyone seemed to have a hot tub in their garden.
Not long after I got back from Ohio, I packed a suitcase with a week’s worth of clothes and took the tube to Hammersmith in West London for the X Factor boot camp auditions. ‘See you later, Mum. Bye, Zach.’ The contestants stayed in a hotel near the Hammersmith Apollo, where the auditions were being held. I shared a room with a really nice girl called Ruth, a Scouser with a beautiful voice. We were friendly for the whole of boot camp and practised together all the time. When everyone else went down to the hotel bar, we stayed in our room together. ‘No, we have to go to bed with our honey and lemon drinks!’
I didn’t want to go down to the bar and shout and laugh and lose my voice. Well, I did want to go to the bar, where everyone was having a laugh, playing the piano, singing and drinking, but I didn’t let myself. ‘You’re not going down there,’ I told myself. I just couldn’t. Being at boot camp was too good to be true and I wasn’t going to risk ruining my chances. It meant so much to me to be there. So I went to bed at eight o’clock every night with my honey and lemon and my Walkman. As long as I had Ruth in the room with me, I didn’t care. She was really good fun.
On the first day, we were divided into groups of three and given a list of songs to choose from. Each group had to break the song up into solo and ensemble parts. Ruth and I were grouped with a girl called Nastasia and we chose ‘Use Somebody’ by Kings of Leon as our song.
While we were rehearsing, I started to feel really nervous as I suddenly realized how serious this was. I was surrounded by 200 people who all wanted the same thing as me, and I thought every single one of them was better than I was. It made me feel sick to see how good they all were, all these people with amazing voices. It was the most horrible feeling. I hadn’t really felt nervous before, but now I was confronted by the reality, I wanted to cry. I can’t do it, I thought. I’m rubbish, nowhere near as good as everyone else here.
When I walked out on stage with Ruth and Nastasia on the second day, my heart was pounding so hard that I thought the judges would probably be able to hear it. I was trembling, a complete wreck. As we started singing, my mind went blank and I couldn’t remember my words. I forgot everything I was supposed to be doing and sang terribly.
Afterwards, Simon Cowell said, ‘I was disappointed in you, Stacey.’
I was close to tears. How awful. I felt like a complete failure. Worse, I couldn’t bear the thought of having to go home, back to everyday life, with all my hopes and dreams dashed.
Me and Ruth got through but I wasn’t happy. I was completely shaken up. I went outside, sat on the steps and called my mum. The moment I heard her voice I burst into tears. ‘I can’t do it, Mum!’ I sobbed. ‘I was too nervous and I forgot all my words. I really can’t do it.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she soothed. ‘You got through, didn’t you?’
‘But everything about it scares me. It means too much to me now. I keep thinking that if I don’t get through, it’s the end. That’s what’s making me so nervous.’
‘You’re fine, Stacey, you can do it,’ she kept saying. ‘Now go and do the next round.’
I must have been papped while I was pouring all my troubles out to her, because the next day there was a picture of me in the paper underneath a headline that labelled me an X Factor reject. I had to giggle when I saw it. But I got through! I thought.
I took Mum’s words to heart and comforted myself with the thought that I hadn’t been sent home, despite doing so badly in that round. ‘I’ll just have to do better the next time,’ I told myself.
The following day we were whittled down to the last fifty. They put us into four different rooms in the hotel and told us that two rooms would get the thumbs up and two rooms wouldn’t. I sat on the floor of the room I was in, wondering whether I was with the winners or losers. It was really nerve-racking. Suddenly we heard a massive cheer from one of the other rooms. So one group had got through. One down, one to go. Then we heard another massive cheer. My heart sank. Oh no, I thought. We didn’t make it.
In fact, someone had said to the first room, ‘Cheer again, so that the people in the other rooms think another room is through.’ It was a clever trick – and it worked!
I wanted to leave as soon as I could, so I rang my sister. ‘Can you come and get me?’ I said, my voice cracking with emotion. ‘I haven’t got through.’
‘I’m on my way,’ she said.
The camera crew came into our room. ‘Yes, we know we haven’t got through,’ we said. They must have been laughing behind the cameras.
‘You’re through!’ someone said.
‘What?’
I rang my sister again. ‘Hold tight, we’re not far away now,’ she said.
‘I’m not leaving now, after all, sorry. I got through!’ I yelled at her. She was too pleased for me to be annoyed.
The next day it was non-stop filming. They film you waking up and they film you walking down to lunch and there are individual interviews with each and every person. I didn’t find it easy at all. During the week the pressure had been building day by day. You don’t sleep properly or eat properly because you’re so nervous. You’re on a high one minute and a low the next. You rehearse until you’re exhausted and then you have to wait around doing nothing much until you find out whether you’ve got through.
When they interview you, you’re bombarded with questions: ‘So what does it mean to you to get through? What’s your son doing now? Where is he?’ They’re not trying to make you look silly; they just want to know everything you’re thinking.
I didn’t want to be one of those people who sobs. ‘I’m not going to cry,’ I told myself as I tried to keep up with the quick succession of questions.
‘If you don’t get through and nothing happens and you go back to your normal life, what will you do?’
‘I’ll just live a normal life, I suppose.’
‘Do you feel bad that you’ve been away from Zach for a week?’
‘Well, a little bit.’
‘Do you think you did enough to get through?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you think this is going to be the end for you?’
‘I don’t know.’
Suddenly, in spite of everything, I found myself crying. ‘Please don’t put that in,’ I asked, and they didn’t. The crew were really good to me. They showed me with a big red face, but they didn’t show me crying.
‘I just want to be successful,’ I said, ‘and do something good.’
‘What will you do if you don’t get through?’
‘This is my life,’ I said. ‘If I can’t do this, I don’t know what I’m going to do, although there’s always Asda!’ And that’s the clip they showed.
Now I was one step away from the final twenty-four, but it was a massive step and I would have to calm down and stay focused to get through it. Our next task was to pick a song and sing it to the judges in front of a live audience. I chose ‘There You’ll Be’ by Faith Hill and Ruth chose Christina Aguilera’s ‘Hurt’. We practised really hard all day and went to bed ridiculously early again. The following morning I got up, went on stage and sang my song in front of the judges, trying not to over think it. The audience helped by cheering really hard as each of us came out, but my mouth was like sand and I was visibly
nervous.
Back at the hotel, I tried to go over my performance in my head. I had forgotten everything the minute I came off stage, so I didn’t know whether I’d done well or not. I had a feeling I hadn’t been great, but at least I didn’t muck it up. This time, at least I’d remembered my words. So I went to bed, thinking, I did what I could and I was better than last time.
In the morning, we were told to line up in groups of five at the rear of the Hammersmith Apollo. As I got in line, I realized that Ruth was in another group. She’d gone in before me because my group was last.
Finally we went through the door into the building and trooped up on stage. ‘Look, we may as well get this over with,’ Simon said grimly.
Oh dear, I thought. That doesn’t sound good.
Then, breaking into a grin, he added, ‘You’re through.’
My heart soared. ‘What?’ I looked at him for reassurance and he nodded. Wow! We really are through! Yes!
Sadly, Ruth hadn’t made it. ‘I haven’t got through. I’m going home,’ she said when I saw her. She was understandably upset and didn’t want to hang around. I was gutted for her and knew I’d really miss her. She was a really nice, talented girl and it would have been great to be with her in the finals.
Everyone who did get through went upstairs at the Apollo and had pizza. Now the pressure was off, we all just ate and ate and ate. Back at the hotel, we were put in four rooms again: the girls in one, the boys in another, then the over twenty-fives and finally the groups. Now it was time to find out which judge we were being allotted.
My group, the girls, desperately wanted Dannii as she seemed like the nicest and friendliest of the judges. Throughout the audition process, she’d always stopped people to ask, ‘How are you?’ And she seemed very genuine.
Stacey: My Story So Far Page 12