Saturday night, and Louis Walsh, the man responsible for booting most of the talented acts OUT of X Factor put an end to Laura White’s dream of winning the competition. Described by the evil Irishman as “The Voice Of The Competition”, Louis chose to save the inferior Ruth Lorenzo instead.

We catch up with Laura after she’s finished her early morning round of TV interviews, and surprisingly she’s very upbeat. In our chat with Laura, we find out how to get her original music online, and how she feels in the aftermath of Saturday night’s shock eviction.

Saturday night was your first time in the bottom two, despite you being one of the front-runners, what do you think led to a lack of phone votes for you this week?

I’m really not sure – it could have been the song choice, or it could have been that Simon gave me bad comments and the public listened to that. It could have been a lot of things. I know Cheryl thought that people thought I was going to get a lot of votes anyway so they didn’t vote for me.

You sang Somewhere Over The Rainbow as your final song. What led to you choosing that song, and would you have done it differently if you had the chance again?

I don’t think the song choice was the reason, I think Louis obviously didn’t want me to stay. I think he’d probably made his mind up before I’d sang the song. I don’t think it was the song, and I’m proud of it. I sang it for my granddad, and I maintain that I chose the right song.

For two weeks running now, Louis Walsh has voted out a strong singer at the expense of a weaker singer. Do you think this is tactical voting to make it easier for JLS in the later stages?

I know Cheryl thinks it’s a tactical thing. I’m not sure though, maybe Louis didn’t really get me that week. He’s made his decision though and I just have to live with that.

It’s difficult though, because I’ve been auditioning since April, and the judges always said I was one of the strongest, but for some reason they didn’t keep me in.

Most people are agreed that Rachel’s performance on Saturday night was her worst, yet none of the judges commented on that. Instead they commented on how nervous she was. What did you think about that?

I think Rachel had a bad week and she knows she did. You’ve just got to have sympathy for her because she’s kind of lost her way at the moment, she’s lost her confidence, and I think the judges are waiting to see that come back.

I think the songs haven’t suited her, and I think Dannii and her have worked hard to get songs, but they’ve not come across well yet. You never know, she might start getting it soon.

There was a scandal a couple of weeks ago about your relationship with Matthew Firsht – since that news broke, some people have said that you couldn’t possibly win or there’d be outcry about it being a fix. How do you respond to that?

It was destroying at the time – I must say it was completely fabricated, it wasn’t true at all, which is clear now, as I’m no longer in the competition! The reason I didn’t speak out about the relationship was because it was early days, I’d only just started seeing him, and I was on the programme to show my music and not the private side of my life.

It was difficult because the press actually made out that it was fixed, and I thought this could affect me. Ultimately, it might have done.

Cheryl looked absolutely furious on Saturday night. Is there any truth in the news that she had a blazing row with Louis afterwards?

I was distraught after the show and spent a long time talking to Dermot, so I didn’t see anything that was going on. I didn’t see the rest of the judges, I just saw Cheryl and I know that she was very angry and she definitely feels it was more of a tactical reason. I’ve no doubt that they had words about it though.

One of our forum members who met you at boot camp speaks very highly of you. He says you’re a very accomplished musician and you’ve got some amazing original songs, including one called She. As a songwriter, how did you feel having to cover other people’s songs on X Factor?

They were all on my MySpace page – at the moment they’re available to download and they’ve actually gone number one and number two in the Download Chart. If you go on to memusic.co.uk, you can download them (Laura’s page is here), and these are songs I’ve written myself. She isn’t up there yet, but it’ll be released shortly.

I didn’t mind covers, because I’ve been doing gigs for years doing cover versions. But I would ultimately love to get a deal and get my own music out there. I’d definitely want to have some input writing, because that’s what I am.

Finally – who are your favourites to win the competition?

I think that Diana or JLS will win. [After a bit of prompting…] I think JLS will probably take it.

Of all the contestants, you had quite an individual style at auditions. When I spoke to Austin Drage last week, he wasn’t happy about the way he was re-styled. How did you feel about how you were styled for the live shows?