[Red Moon]

X Factor's Daniel criticises Louis

The latest act to be kicked off ITV talent show the X Factor has laid into his mentor Louis Walsh for not understanding him and choosing the wrong song for him to perform.

Daniel de Bourg became the second hopeful to be voted off the reality talent programme after judges criticised his choice of song.

The 31-year-old ballet tutor was an early favourite with bookmakers to win the ITV1 show but his rendition of the 1960s classic Build Me Up Buttercup failed to impress the panel.

His mentor Walsh voted to save him, but the other judges Sharon Osbourne, Danni Minogue and Simon Cowell all chose to keep 23-year-old Alisha Bennett on the show instead.

"I was surprised, of course I was surprised," Daniel said at a press conference. "I'm upset that I didn't get to show the real me.

"Louis knows what he's talking about, he's been in the game for a long time, but maybe he didn't really understand me, the kind of performer I am."

"I was doing my best in there with the song I was given, I tried to do it justice," he added. "But with a show like X Factor you have no say."

He described the process in which songs are matched to contestants as "backstage politics" and explained he had been due to sing the Damien Rice hit Cannonball before producers told him to do Prince's When Doves Cry instead.

Only after last Saturday's live show did he discover that a more upbeat song choice was required.

"After the end of the first week Louis came up to me just as I was leaving to get into the car, and said 'we've changed the song,'" he said. "It was absolutely not the right decision. "I don't know what was going on behind the scenes, it's a big, big TV show."

Source: Sunderland Echo