'I’m a huge ITV star and this is why Britain’s Got Talent has had its day’

X Factor finalist Fleur East has confessed that Britain’s Got Talent has had it’s day for one main reason. The Strictly: It Takes Two presenter – who hosted the National Lottery’s New Year’s Eve Big Bash at the OVO Wembley Arena – competed on the singing competition back in 2014.

The mum-of-one started out as a vocalist in the girl band Addictiv Ladies but in the second audition, ITV bosses pushed for her to perform as a solo artist. It was at this point that she really grabbed the judges’ attention and soared all the way to the live final before she was pipped to the post by Ben Haenow. The long-running show ran from 2004 to 2018, with Simon Cowell returning to the helm for The X Factor: Celebrity, but it failed to take off with viewers at home.

After fans tuned in for the Britain’s Got Talent final on Saturday (May 31), the Sax hitmaker has lifted the lid on why she feels the ITV talent show should be retired.

The doting mum argued that the 2024 winner Sydney Christmas may have become a bigger star if she had competed on X Factor rather than BGT because of the fast-paced format.

She explained:” We had Sydney Christmas perform at the New Year’s Bash and she is an incredible singer, and she came from Britain’s Got Talent.

“But I feel like if she went on a show like X Factor, we would have got to see her a lot more, learn about her, become familiar with her, get to see more of a process and a journey.”

She went on to explain that Britain’s Got Talent isn’t the best place for singers to start their career. Fleur argued: “Whereas I feel like with Britain’s Got Talent for singers like her, you see two or three performances and then it’s the final.

"So, it’s quite a condensed process in that sense. I just miss seeing people walk into the audition room and then spend three months getting to know who they are and then boom, you’ve got the next big thing.”

Sharing her love for the X Factor, she teased that the show should make a comeback after it was scrapped back in 2019. The presenter declared: “I loved the show and I feel like there hasn’t really been anything like it since.

“Maybe it still needs a bit of time away but eventually there’ll be something similar if not a return of it again because I feel like there’s nothing really that’s managed to replace it. For me, I’ve just missed the format altogether.”