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Senior Member
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rutland
Posts: 25,358
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Rutland
Posts: 25,358
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I want to win more than them
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I want to win more than them WHEN X Factor’s Rhydian Roberts first appeared on our screens the judges said he was “the most arrogant person” they had ever met.
Dannii Minogue made vomiting noises as he left the room.
Early on, mocking Rhydian’s classical training, every clip of him was accompanied by over-the-top music from The Phantom Of The Opera.
Show’s boss Simon Cowell confidently predicted to The Sun that the 24-year-old would “definitely” be the first act chucked off the show when it went live.
Now the Welsh wonder – nicknamed The Riddler – is having the last laugh.
He is favourite to claim the £1million recording deal on offer on the ITV1 reality contest tonight, at 3-1 on with the bookies, and a career in West End theatre surely beckons.
Even if he is beaten this evening by rivals Leon Jackson, 18, or Same Difference, the future looks bright.
Rhydian says Simon is taking a real interest in him, and reveals “Simon is grooming me to be a long-term recording artist. He knows what he’s talking about, I can’t ignore what he’s saying.”
It wasn’t like that when the contest started.
Rhydian says: “I regret not knowing early on more about the way TV works. I wouldn’t say I was stitched up in those initial pictures, but I should have been prepared for the editing.
“I DID think I’d go in the first week. I look back on how I was portrayed and it’s kind of pantomime. I’d say things on camera like that I wanted a knighthood – and that’s my dream – but they made it sound arrogant.
“I now know the show did me a favour. It gave me an identity. I was the most well known in the competition right from the beginning.
“Simon and Dannii may not have loved me right from the start but they’re both really supportive now. I don’t hold it against anyone.”
Rhydian may not mean to appear overconfident, but he has a knack of expressing himself in a way other people wouldn’t.
Without blushing he tells me he wants someone to write a musical for him to take to Broadway.
His supreme confidence is part of his charm – but Rhydian admits he is worried that X Factor fans might end up plumping for his more naive final rivals.
He says: “I’m always self-confident on stage and my performances have been pretty consistent, but the others have been growing. “Leon is really catching me up because he was so nervous at the start, and people like to watch that journey. Also the judges are bigging him up. So that’s my worry. I do love both the acts but it’s been getting tense in the last two weeks. There’s an air of competitiveness now which there wasn’t before.
“It’s a huge prize and we all want it. But I think I probably want it more than the others. And I think if you asked the others, they would agree.
“Same Difference said they’d be happy with fourth place last week. I wouldn’t be at all happy with that. I have worked for six years for this chance and I don’t want to blow it now – I know it’s never going to happen again.
“This is The X Factor, I’m realistic, it’s just five minutes of fame. It’s what I do afterwards that counts. But I have to strike while the iron’s hot.”
Although Dannii is Rhydian’s mentor, Simon has been taking a keen interest in between looking after Same Difference, Sean Smith, 21, and his sister Sarah, 18.
Rhydian says: “Simon sometimes takes me aside and has a word with me. He works very closely with Dannii so I benefit from that. Simon now wants to give me a more serious look. They have made my hair flatter – I liked it when it was huge, like Billy Idol. Simon is thinking of how to make me look like a respectable recording artist, but I don’t want to be wallpaper boring.
“They have been giving me more serious songs in recent weeks, too. I liked doing the pop songs.
“I loved doing Meat Loaf in the first week and Pink’s Get The Party Started was great fun. That’s why people voted for me in the first place so it’d be a shame to lose that.
“It’s hard being given song choices and being in their hands but they are totally respected in their industry so I have to trust them.”
Dannii also has big plans for her charge although she, too, worried about him in the first week.
She admits: “People didn’t get him – they hated him. He was on the phone to me saying, ‘My mum’s crying and I don’t know what to do’. I thought there was a good chance he’d go but it was amazing how quickly things turned around for him.
“With anyone who’s got a big career, there’s a big personality behind it. You need that. I said to him, ‘There are judges who are so nasty to you, but just go with it. The more Louis and Sharon were nasty to him, the more special it is when they say, ‘You know what? I’m starting to like you’.
“I could see it was good for him. The audience can’t take in all 12 acts at the beginning so you need to stand out.
“It will be so satisfying if he wins after the other judges said he was rubbish. I think he has a big career in theatre ahead of him.”
TheX Factor final is on ITV1 tonight at 7.15pm. The results show is on at 9.35pm.
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Source: The Sun
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15-12-2007, 08:10 AM
Hybrid Mode
