Louis Walsh sparks X Factor 'fix' row after he admits to splashing cash voting for his OWN acts in live shows | The Sun

LOUIS Walsh has revealed the eyebrow-raising tactics he used to try and ensure his acts won the X Factor.

The music manager, 71, claims he often drew the short straw when it came to the categories he was tasked with mentoring on the programme.

Now he's admitted to splashing cash voting for his own acts in the live rounds to give them the best shot at winning.

It all adds new meaning to his iconic line: "Just pick up the phone and vote."

He told told Ladbrokes LIVE: "We'd have big campaigns to get votes, absolutely. If we really believed in one of our acts, we'd do everything we could to try and keep them in the competition. I used to vote for my own acts, absolutely! We would vote for the people we were very invested in, absolutely! I don't remember how much it used to cost us, but if we were invested, and we really wanted to win, we would do whatever it took."

Among Louis' more successful acts on the show were G4, Shayne Ward, JLS, and Marmite duo Jedward.

READ MORE ON X FACTOR

NEW STAGE

The X Factor rejects who made the big time – from Stacey Solomon to Rylan Clark

ONCE MORE

X Factor legend unrecognisable she makes red carpet appearance 15 years after

As memorable as those acts may be, the Irishman believes he was tasked with making diamonds out of coal year in year out.

He said: "Simon [Cowell] used to always give me the worst category. Every year he'd give me the category with the worst acts, or the funny acts, and every year I'd think 'he's got to give me something good here' but he never would. We never knew until we walked through that door, you know, who we'd got. That was the strange thing about it; people thought it was all a set-up, but we knew nothing. He did, but he never used to tell me or Sharon [Osbourne] a thing.

"I had Shayne Ward for series two. He was good, and I worked really hard with him because I knew i had a chance of winning. I got him a great song for the final. I knew that as long as I got him in the final, there was no way he was going to be beaten, because I'd got him Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Simon couldn't stop us, then. 

"It was all real. We were all really working to win."

Most read in News TV

FIONA’S FEAR

Fiona Phillips blames devastating Alzheimer’s diagnosis on 3am GMTV starts

THE SPECIAL WON

Josie Gibson gets major This Morning ‘promotion’ after I’m A Celeb triumph

defrosted

Channel 4 ‘axes’ fan favourite Christmas show presented by celebrity host

LOST A LEGEND

Doctor Who, Still Open All Hours & The Bill star dies aged 83

X Factor last aired in the UK in 2018 having become a pale imitation of its halcyon days in the early noughties.

A show insider told us: “Globally, it is still a phenomenon and rakes in millions every year. But in the UK, there is no question it has become slightly stale."

Previous reports claimed there was an option to revive it this year, but that did not happen and it now appears the programme will remain on ice for the foreseeable future.

Source: Read Full Article