One of last year X Factor rejects, Joe Cox, has re-auditioned for this years show at the O2 arena.

Joe Cox made it through to the judges house’s stage of the competition last year, but was pipped at the final post when mentor Gary Barlow was advised that he wasn’t ready for the live shows by his ‘helper’ Robbie Williams.

However, according to The Sun Newspaper, this did not put the young lad off, and he came back fighting yesterday, blowing all four judges away with his performance, forcing Barlow to admit: “Your ‘no’ was the hardest for me by far and I’ve been waiting for this moment.

“You’re going to be a great artist. Joe, welcome back.”

Meanwhile judges Tulisa Contostavlos and Louis Walsh both admitted to the young wannabe that if he had been in their category then they would have both put him through to the live finals.

Louis said:  ”You’ve convinced me we’ve found someone brilliant.  I predict you are one of the people to watch in this competition because you are bigger and better.”

According to reports in The Daily Mail newspaper, Cox harboured no grudges toward the Take That front man and told him:  ”I want to say thank you for saying no, because I wasn’t ready.”

Watch Joe’s audition from last year in the clip below:

Meanwhile, at the same auditions, X Factor fans saw the return of stand in judge, and axed X Factor USA judge, Nicole Scherzinger.

Scherzinger, girlfriend of Brit F1 racer, Lewis Hamilton, didn’t get off to the best start though as she held up the programming by more than hour whilst she took her time to get ready for the auditions.

Fresh from hollidaying in the Riviera with Hamilton, you would have thought that the break would have chilled her out, but it would seem that she was as uptight as ever as she displayed the sort of Diva’ish behaviour usually reserved for the real judges, not a stand in sacked one!

And Tulisa was left looking ever so slightly stupid at the action packed audition session when she queried who originally sang a song performed by a show hopeful, only to be told that the original artist was Jessie J, Tulisa’s supposed good friend, who had helped her pick her final acts at the judges stage of last years competition.

Tulisa was heckled by the crowd, and judges alike, when her connection to the artist was pointed out, which obviously wound her up as she hit back saying:  ”Yeah, but that don’t mean I’m going to listen to her album.”

Really Tulisa, you got her to help decide the future’s of your acts based on what, her looks?

Watch Tulisa talking about her ‘friend’ Jessie J below: