Former X Factor contestant, Niki Evans has criticised the makers of the show for the way that they make potential winners speak out about private tragedies in a bid to gain viewers sympathy.

Niki was seen crying during last years series about the recent death of her father, but she claims that it was an issue she never wanted to talk about on camera.

“I didn’t want to speak about it but it was brought up time after time,” Niki told the Sunday Mercury. “I actually hadn’t told anyone about how I came to audition. But my mum had let it slip that I found the X Factor application form in my dad’s stuff. So when Simon [Cowell] brought it up in the audition, I was genuinely shocked.

“He tried to get me to talk about it, but I refused and told him he had to hear me sing first.”

Evans then revealed that Louis Walsh had predictably been willing to go to any lengths to make one of his team a winner saying:

“Louis, my mentor, had told me to sing Luther Vandross’s ‘Dance With My Father’ and then cry afterwards,” she explained. “But I told him there was no way I was going to do that - not with my mum sitting in front of me. It would have been really hurtful. And it just looked like I was grabbing onto it and using this tragedy to further my career.

“I was really adamant that I wouldn’t do it, and in the end I got my way and performed ‘Songbird’. I was voted off the show that night - but I don’t regret not performing ‘Dance With My Father’.”