Chico Slimani has claimed that Simon Cowell forced Louis Walsh to put John and Edward Grimes through to the live finals, because he knew what a media circus would erupt around them.
The former X Factor contestant told the hosts of Live From Studio Five: “I’ve been watching it and I have to say, when they came on, I thought, ‘They can’t possibly let them through’. Now Simon is many things, stupid he isn’t. He’s rung up, going, ‘Louis, you’re putting those kids through’. Why? The thing is, who are we talking about now?
Diva Week. A tough week, as Cheryl repeatedly lamented, but only because boys aren’t great at diva material and she’s mentoring…the boys. But now that the performances are over, how well did the X Factor contestants do?
Well, here’s the return of the Unreality TV X Factor chart for our opinions on the best and the worst of the crop tonight. You can fight it out with us in the comments!
Jamie Archer – A surprise top position for Jamie Archer, but well deserved. Jamie showed soul and delivered a fantastic, sensitive performance. Certainly a depth we honestly didn’t think he had! Well done Jamie!
Joe McElderry – In contrast to Jamie’s experience, young Joe still manages to impress with a beautiful singing voice and more stage presence than the peers in his age group.
Olly Murs – Formerly couldn’t stand Olly (on a charge of smarminess – he’s been caught red-handed), but his performance tonight was the most ambitious from a choreography point of view. The vocal wasn’t too shabby either and showed that Murs is taking the competition seriously.
Stacey Solomon – A beautiful performance from Dagenham Stace, who looked gorgeous onstage. What’s holding her back from a higher position is an obscure song choice and a general lack of movement on stage.
Danyl Johnson – The highly anticipated possible winner of the competition took on a previously unheard Whitney song with many strings pulled by mentor Simon Cowell. Shame that the song was so dull. He worked well with what he was given though, but it wasn’t up to his usual standard (although it wanted to be).
Lucie Jones – Lovely Lucie made a valiant attempt at a Whitney song, but ultimately it was too big for her and kind of brought out some of her weaknesses as a performer. Though she looked great onstage, she showed that she might still have a lot of work to do on her act.
John and Edward – It says a lot when the worst singers of the night weren’t the worst act. John and Edward succeed at entertaining an audience. They’re the Chico, the Same Difference of the competition. A bit of a joke, but at least they can engage with the audience – something the lower acts have a problem with.
Rikki Loney – Even ditching his ridiculous hat collection couldn’t make Rikki shine in this competition. Notably, Simon said to him that “you went from a pub singer to a wedding singer in one week”, perhaps showing him exactly what he thinks of him.
Lloyd Daniels – Otherwise known as “poor poor Lloyd”, this kid is utterly lacking in stage presence. We almost feel sorry for him with the ‘rabbit-in-headlights’ look in his face. The girlie vote will probably keep him in longer than necessary though.
Rachel Adedeji – Oh Rachel! Terrible. I had such high hopes, but she started singing on her back on the stage and it sounded awful. Song choice hit her hard as well, and it looks like Dannii is struggling where to place Rachel as an artist.
Miss Frank – I know a lot of people thought this was a good performance. It wasn’t. I just thought it was a noisy mess and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose votes tonight. Another of Louis’ acts on the chopping block this week?
Well, readers, what do you think? Are we on the money or do you have a different chart?
Last week’s auditions show took a lot of flack for changing the classic “laugh at the morons” formula. Not from us, we think the BGT-style live auditions rock and finally focus on finding great performers for the live shows.
Never mind, there are plenty of morons to laugh at tonight, but they still fly before you have time to point at the screen and sneer.
First to the stage is Brummie Alan Walton, who spends most of his audition giving Simon directions to his flat. He fluffs the beginning of the song as he tries to count himself in with his watch. Oh, he’s singing Boyzone, by the way. Total disaster. Even Louis didn’t put him through.
He’s followed by a girl who no-one can understand, either singing or talking. This is the tip of a montage of oddballs. Andrew Ellis was told by angels to audition tonight, but not coached by them on how to sing. Bad angels. Good Lord. Birmingham might get blacklisted next year!
Yesterday, I got the chance to speak to one of the sweetest X Factor contestants in this year’s show: Ruth Lorenzo.
Ruth was voted out on Saturday night, and we received a storm of comments complaining that Eoghan or Diana should have gone instead. Many of our commenters said they’d never watch the show again!
And so we catch up with Ruth to chat about how she came to audition for X Factor, what her real musical tastes are, and where her career is headed after this. In fact, we may have solved the conundrum that was bothering me on Saturday night (I couldn’t work out how she could be marketed as a singer) – we have decided that Ruth should front her own rock band!
It seems like Chico Slimani isn’t going down to well with the rest of the Celebair team.
Apparently his chants of “It’s Chico time!”, “It’s meal time!” and “It’s disembarking time!”, are starting to grate heavily on the nerves of his fellow airline staff.
One insider told the Daily Star: “It won’t be very long until it’s Chico Time To Go Time. Everyone’s beginning to find him very annoying.” Read more & comment »
September 1st, 2008 by Lisa McGarry. Tags: Celebair
Tempers have been frayed on ITV2’s new reality TV show, Celebair, most noticeably between X Factor reject Chico and What Not To Wear Presenter, Mica Paris.
A source told The Sun: “The contestants were put through six weeks of intensive training by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) before they boarded their first flight.
“Each contestant had to pass before they could enter the show – which they all did and they all worked incredibly hard so they could take part.
“However, because it has been so intense, tempers have flared between Mica and Chico. They came into an argument while serving on the flight and Mica accused Chico of taking the show too seriously. Read more & comment »
Contestants from ITV2 reality TV show, Celebair, threatened to walk out this week after show bosses made them resit a test.
The celebs had all previously passed the Civil Aviation Authority exam when bosses found out that they had taken a long boozy lunch immediately before the test. For safety reasons they then insisted that the exam was retaken by all.
Some of the stars were not too happy at the thought of a re-take and threatened to leave the show.
“They were up in arms because they’d all passed and couldn’t see why they had to bother to do the exam again,” an insider told the Daily Star. “But safety is paramount for the producers and they felt they couldn’t take a chance. They wanted to be sure they knew their stuff. Read more & comment »
We recently brought you the details of ITV2’s newest reality TV show, Celebair and today ITV have announced the 11 celebrities who will be taking part in the show.
In this new eight-part series, 11 celebrities will take on a range of jobs on the ground and in the air to battle it out ultimately to become CelebAir’s star employee and win thousands of pounds for the charity of their choice.
The show will be presenter by former children’s TV presenter, Angelica Bell and the team will consist of singer and presenter, Mica Paris; singer and Steps band member, Lisa Scott-Lee; star of The X-Factor, singer Chico; writer and presenter, Tamara Beckwith; presenter and comedienne Amy Lamé; star of Australian Idol and Neighbours, Dan O’Connor; singer and former member of Blazin’ Squad, Kenzie; ex-Hear’Say member and husband of Lisa Scott-Lee, Johnny Shentall; musician and one-time member of So Solid Crew, Lisa Maffia; model Michelle Marsh and comedian and actor, Phil Cornwell.
March 27th, 2008 by Lisa McGarry. Tags: Chico Slimani
Former X Factor finalist Chico Slimani has revealed that he is to launch his own TV show, which will be in a Jim’ll Fix It Style.
He told RTÉ: “[I've got] a TV show coming up, a Chico-type TV show. I’m really looking forward to it.
“Basically, I’m a dream-maker. It’s a cross between Jim’ll Fix It and My Kind of People, with music thrown in for good measure, and little twists where people compete against each other.
“It’s making dreams come true, but having a whole heap of fun doing it.”
There’s never been a worse time for reality TV flagship shows than right now. Ask the producers of American Idol, X Factor and Big Brother. Talent is seemingly thin on the ground, the formats themselves seem strained and audiences are in decline.
The American entertainment websites will tell you that American Idol is onto a surefire winner this year – they’ve basically got a captive audience due to the Hollywood writer’s strike. But that’s no reason to become complacent, and the Idol production team know it.
Season six of American Idol featured some of the weakest talent the competition has known to date. Backed up by the fact that neither the winner – Jordin Sparks – or the runner-up Blake Lewis managed to score a number one with their respective debut singles.
Is it a coincidence that the two top talent shows of 2007 were a complete washout? I already passed my judgement on 2007’s X Factor, but Lisa and I really expected so much more from American Idol. After all, surely larger population = larger chance of talented individuals getting through? Apparently not.
Rumours are spreading that former X factor finalist, Chico Slimani, has managed to get his newest song Curvy Cola Bottle, onto the soundtrack of the Sex In The City movie. Given that the movie is set to be one of next years biggest, I really hope this shoots him into the big time. Chico may not be the best singer around, but he is just so cute!
Here’s the video of the song, in case you missed it’s release earlier this year.
Former X Factor finalist Chico Slimani has revealed that he was inspired to write his new song, Curvy Cola Bottle Body, after he heard a bunch of young schoolgirls talking about their desire to be thinner.
The singer told Sky Showbiz: “I went on the net and started going into it, and there are models dying, people starving, so I didn’t want to concentrate on the problem. I wanted to concentrate on the solution, so size-zero’s gotta go.
“Cos, you know, us men like them swervy, curvy and shaped like an hourglass.” Read more & comment »
So it all starts moving quickly now and it’s time for Bootcamp. Did anybody find it hard to keep up with who was going through, I was trying to note down every ones names while watching the show and kept missing people! There where quite a few people who I completely missed like Ryan the soldier, who I thought was going to do really well. I’m made up that Kimberly the Barmaid from Birmingham has got through. I don’t agree with Simon when he said she’s annoying, she’s just a bit hyper but at least she’s not saying the same stuff as everyone else. I loved it when she said, if I don’t get through I’ll just put a fake smile on and say thanks, and then as she came off stage she was saying ‘let me, through, let me through’ and I’m glad she did. Read more & comment »
September 29th, 2007 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: X Factor 2007
Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s make all the blokes sing The Beatle’s most overplayed song. “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary makes me fluff the lyrics…”
When last we left boot camp, things were looking bloody bad. Thankfully, things improved a bit in this one. Better performances all round, finally some solid choices from the judges as to who goes on to the next stage.
Frankly, there was more singing and less bullshit in this episode. The X Factor succeeds for me when they’re not trying to spin out old cliches.
So I got to watch the X Factor on Saturday Night this week because I had my first Saturday without a show for ages.
Paris was back, if you remember she auditioned last year, and as the judges put her through she told them she couldn’t go through because she was only 14. She’s a year older now and it’s OK for her to enter, I agree with Danni a bit that it’s hard to see her singing the different styles of song every week but she is really talented and determined.
Did you notice nearly all the bad auditions were called John this week? John the window cleaner, John the teacher (who thought Tom Jones couldn’t sing!) and the old John who sang Buddy Holly with a silly dance in his trainers.
While we talk about bad, the girl with the bad attitude and the really bad mouth, Rachel will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. She thought she was better than Madonna and really believed she was god’s gift to singing. All the judges hated her and when she could see it going wrong she started swearing and being really aggressive. I agree with Simon her attitude was awful, and I know why they did show it, but I think they shouldn’t show things like this (even though they always will because it’s good TV) This girl has obviously got some issues, and she needs some help, but I can imagine she is really depressed now and will be having an awful time. Read more & comment »
So it all starts moving quickly now and it’s time for Bootcamp. Did anybody find it hard to keep up with who was going through, I was trying to note down every ones names while watching the show and kept missing people! There where quite a few people who I completely missed like Ryan the soldier, who I thought was going to do really well. I’m made up that Kimberly the Barmaid from Birmingham has got through. I don’t agree with Simon when he said she’s annoying, she’s just a bit hyper but at least she’s not saying the same stuff as everyone else. I loved it when she said, if I don’t get through I’ll just put a fake smile on and say thanks, and then as she came off stage she was saying ‘let me, through, let me through’ and I’m glad she did. 
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