Inside the X Factory: This year's series has been tainted by scandals over drugs and bullying, but that's not what shocked LIZ JONES when she went backstage at the show
By Liz Jones
Last updated at 9:11 AM on 5th December 2011
Jesy Nelson, member of girl band Little Mix and X Factor semi-finalist, is not sure she likes the look that has been chosen for her today.
‘Hmmm. White shirts, black jackets to sing If I Were A Boy?’ she ponders. She’s talking to Laury Smith, The X Factor stylist who cut her teeth dressing the likes of Britney Spears on tour. ‘Yes!’ says Laury. ‘Stripped down, androgynous but sexy...’
‘But isn’t it a bit, well... obvious?’ says Jesy dismissively.
We squeeze through the racks of clothes and arrive at the rail with the look for the girls’ second song for Saturday night’s live performance, a Motown number.
Visit: Liz Jones, pictured with Marcus Collins, was shocked by how little support the X Factor contestants get from their mentors
This look, chosen the day before by the girls’ ‘mentor’, Tulisa Contostavlos, is short Sixties prom dresses. ‘Oh no!’ wails Jesy. ‘That is so last week.’
Jesy is just 20, and has spent only weeks in the spotlight, but already she knows her image is every bit as important as her singing. Perhaps more so. Which is partly why I am here with her today.
Intrigued by what goes on behind the scenes to prepare the contestants for their performances each week, I have been allowed to spend the day backstage before Saturday’s show to see The X Factor support team in action.
Despite the dip in viewing figures this season, the show still brings in 10 million viewers every Saturday night. Yet this series has also been one of its most controversial, tainted by scandals over bullying and drug-taking.
For those still in the competition, the pressure must be immense. So how well, I wondered, are they being looked after behind the scenes?
Little Mix: The band (l-r: Jade, Jesy, Perrie, Leigh Ann) are said to be 'all very private' despite seeking the showbiz lifestyle in the most public way possible
I arrive at noon. The venue is bleak — a concrete studio a stone’s throw from Wembley Arena, where the final will be staged next weekend. All those who criticise The X Factor for glamorising showbusiness should spend a few minutes in these cramped corridors, littered with detritus: tubes of hair dye, squares of melting chocolate, pizzas and bits of tat.
The first surprise I find is that all four semi-finalists — Marcus Collins, Amelia Lily, Misha B and the Little Mix girls Jesy, Perrie, Leigh-Anne and Jade — are sweet, unassuming and, largely, undemanding.
They are exhausted. Amelia, 17, sits in a corner, yawning. In make-up, she uses every opportunity she can (i.e. when her false eyelashes are being glued on) to grab a few seconds’ sleep. Surrounding them is a sea of super-ambitious, gimlet-eyed crew in skinny jeans and headphones, wielding walkie-talkies.
But there’s no sign of the contestants’ celebrity mentors. You know, the judges who hug so prodigiously, who flick tears from their lashes with expensive, etiolated fingernails, who weep and grieve and encourage and impart wisdom.
I go in search of the people whom I’ve been told I must refer to as ‘The X Factor style team’. (The steely grip of Simon Cowell, whose Syco company runs this whole shebang, makes Stalin seem laidback.)
I start in wardrobe, a freezing warehouse staffed by Laury and her team, supplemented by four unpaid interns. Bear in mind these young people work seven days a week, from 8am until gone 10pm. No wonder the interns, too, are exhausted and in tears.
But at least, as one team member tells me, ‘they are now employable’. Fantastic. Just don’t tell them about the £8,000-per-second the show will earn from advertisers for a slot in next weekend’s final.
Judges (l-r: Louis Walsh, Tulisa, Kelly Rowland and Gary Barlow): But where are they while their acts are rehearsing all day?
The contestants arrive here throughout the day for fittings. Misha’s dress is being made as we speak, comprised of warped vinyl records, with a disc for each shoulder pad. I doubt the semi-finalists, who bar Jesy are still teenagers, have ever seen a piece of vinyl before.
Laury says it’s easier now the boybands have been eliminated, as they were always trying to watch Little Mix getting changed, which wasn’t great as the girls ‘are all very private’.
I love this observation. Four young women entering an industry that is, due to struggling sales, more rapacious than ever, and who think they can retain any propriety whatsoever.
I ask Laury about the process of choosing the ‘look’. ‘We have a meeting with executives on a Tuesday, when about 12 people are present.’
The judges presumably are there, yes? ‘No. I then get together a look.’ Which the judges look at? ‘No, I email them a photo.’
The contestants had a fitting on Friday, and now each has their photo taken. This, too, is emailed to the judges, the upshot of which is ‘Kelly [Rowland] wants more rhinestones’.
Out on stage, host Dermot O’Leary is stumbling over his lines in rehearsal: ‘The X Factor is one step away from the erm, erm, final!’ The executive producers, stage managers and creative directors cheer encouragingly.
Mentor: Does Kelly Rowland (centre) look after her acts - Amelia Lily, left, and Misha B, right, offstage as well as on?
It’s now 2pm, and I’m with head stylist Jamie Stevens who takes me through his creative process for each contestant. ‘I start with mood boards on my iPad. I like to push boundaries.’
But the contestants are nowhere to be seen, as the hair is mostly wigs (a bob and a curly mop for Misha, styled on the head of a burly male stand-in), and long pink extensions, which will later be glued to Amelia Lily.
Quite a few of the girls have bad skin due to fatigue and the awful diet, so I ask the head of make-up, Natalya Nair, how she deals with this. ‘Layers and layers of foundation.’
Even so, I wonder at the need for each young girl, and even Marcus (a slight young man who has sacks of fanmail waiting for him in reception) to be so over-decorated, turning them into mini drag queens.
Rather than honing their vocals, a great deal of time before the live weekend broadcast is spent in fake tanning booths.
On Friday, a three-strong team from St Tropez arrived to airbrush them all, while today two people will ‘sculpt bodies with shimmer’. I’m staggered to learn each contestant’s knuckles are bronzed and shimmered, ready for their close up.
In the final hours there is no focus, no pep talks, no going into ‘the zone’. The contestants merely fiddle on their iPhones.
Marcus Collins says he 'can't go back to being a hairdresser' after The X Factor
The sweetest moments are when middle-aged mums peep round doors at painted offspring, concerned faces a mixture of pride and desperation.
What a huge load to place on the shoulders of anyone, let alone this lot, who seem likely to be spat on the scrapheap in a short time indeed.
As for the role of the ‘mentors’, I ask Marcus what has been the best bit of advice Gary Barlow has given him? ‘Um, not to read my own press.’
Misha is still having her make-up done. ‘Is it waterproof, for when I cry?’ she asks disingenuously.
But then, at 4.39pm, a miracle happens. A judge arrives! It’s Tulisa, wearing a purple velour Lipsy tracksuit. She’s surrounded by an entourage of broken-nosed young men wearing medallions; I hug my handbag closer.
‘Hi!’ she says in the direction of the redhead in Little Mix (sorry, but bar Jesy, these girls are so forgettable). And that’s it! After exactly 22 seconds, she wafts out again, into her locked dressing room along the corridor.
I ask Jesy about her mentor, how much help she has been. The huge eyes swivel, unsure what to say.
I then learn Gary Barlow has arrived. Is he coming to see Marcus?
I shoot into the corridor, but the only evidence the Take That singer is here is the presence of Big James, a huge bodyguard who does not leave his spot outside the dressing room for the next few hours. What sort of example is that to give to these new stars on their first steps? Make it big, get yourselves £12,000 of new teeth like Tulisa, then lock yourself away?
Then, ta da!, Kelly Rowland is here. ‘Hi!’ she says, to no one in particular. She whispers in the ear of make-up supremo Natalya, then retreats behind the gold star on the door of her dressing room after just 11 seconds in the room.
That is the sum total of the interaction I witness between judges and the children whose lives have been hijacked and held up to ridicule to feed the X Factor production line.
By 5.30pm, it’s time for the dress rehearsal. Misha pops into the briefly unlocked dressing room of Kelly.
Amelia is with me in the green room, piling more slap on her face.
Even for the dress rehearsal, the judges aren’t seen, although the audience is in place, learning to chant contestants’ names on cue.
Host Dermot runs through his banter. The judges are watching, I’m assured, on screens in their dressing rooms and will ‘BlackBerry their thoughts’ to the post-dress rehearsal meeting. There is one hour to make changes before the show goes live.
During the show, Marcus comes off-stage, elated after his performance.
‘What will you do if you don’t win?’ I ask. ‘Well, I can’t go back to being a hairdresser, not after this,’ he says in his Liverpool accent.
I wish Gary Barlow were here, to impart his wisdom. I see a bowl of fruit go into his dressing room, and a pair of straightening tongs, and the door closes again.
These wannabes are on their own.
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