Meet the adorable fresher who made it to this year’s X Factor boot camp

Watch out BNOCs, there’s a new name on the rise

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A gutsy fresher has made it through to the bootcamp round of this year’s X Factor.

Caitlyn, 17, has been singing since she was seven and wowed judges with four yeses to progress to the next stage.

Hailing from Tranent in East Lothian, the Edinburgh fresher has performed at Edinburgh Playhouse, she was the winner of Edinburgh’s Got Talent, and then made it past the audition stage on Britain’s Got Talent earlier this year.

Caitlyn, who’s studying Primary Education, applied for the X Factor, and began the gruelling process just to perform in front of the celeb judges.

She said: “The first round was a producer room. It’s kind of like this for all the TV shows. You’re first off with a general researcher, and they hear you and if they think you’re good enough they can send you upstairs to the producers, or they can send you home.

“So you go up to producers, and you sing again, and then if they like you from that, you get put on a short list and you have phone interviews and massive  questionnaires to fill out. So the whole process for that takes a good month or two.

“My first arena audition wasn’t even aired, I was gutted about that… there’s some people on that show that you’re surprised are being given airtime.”

 

Caitlyn, who lives at home, said: “So about three weeks after my producer round, I got a phone call saying I had been shortlisted.

“Then a few weeks later after filling out the questionnaires I got a call to say I had been successful and would be singing in front of the judges.

“In each show there’s roughly fifteen people, so when you think about it, even to get there is quite good, if you think about how many people auditioned. It’s kind of crazy.”

While the process may seem bitchy and unfriendly, Caitlyn did imply there was some healthy competition between the contestants.

She added: “To start off with, you go to the first arena, you are with your family, it’s all about you, but when you get to bootcamp, it’s strange.

“You get thrown into an environment with everyone who wants the exact same thing as you do, they have to work the exact same, have to perform on the exact same level – even better than you. You’re all competing against each other but you’re also all together on the same journey.

“It’s hard because the group I found myself in, I made so many good friends.

“We were all so similar and we gel really well. The friendships are really hard because some of the friends I had made were being sent home, and that made me feel sad

“My emotions were on a rollercoaster. I slept for two days when I got back home because of how emotionally draining it is.”

Speaking about what Caitlyn thinks of the judges, she said: “Cheryl is lovely, she’s one of the nicest people I’ve met.

“Simon is such a big softy, since he’s had his baby. Rita and Nick are lovely, they’re all such lovely people. To meet people of that status, you think ‘oh my god!’ but they’re so normal  they’re just like you are.”

Shitting herself backstage

When asked what the judges though of Caitlyn, it all seemed positive:”Simon says he really likes me… Cheryl says she really likes me voice, she says it’s beautiful… They all liked me.”

“I was lucky enough to get a full panel of yeses, and I headed off to bootcamp.”

Caitlyn made it to the next stage of bootcamp, which resumes on Sunday, ready for a solo performance where you sing your own choice of music.

Ryan Ruckledge caused carnage there – shouting “Tell Simon he can stick his show!” after an awful performance, with all the judges voting him off, and Simon calling him a ‘horror of a human being’.

Squad goalz

Asking about how Freshers’ Week went, she said she hasn’t been too active with the nightlife, but did go to the Big Cheese.

She went to see Union J who were performing, and she also mentioned that she’s “done gigs with them before.”

She’s also signed up for Project Mongolia, a society at the uni which is a philanthropic effort to support Mongolian charities.

But does she feel like a normal student?

She said:”X Factor doesn’t change things. It’s a good platform to be on; people see you. But I’m just little Caitlyn. It’s strange how people see you on that but I don’t think it changes anything.”