Harry Styles & Niall Horan: The Biography - Choose Your Favourite Member of One Direction. Sarah Oliver
Final – ‘Your Song’ by Elton John, ‘She’s the One’ by Robbie Williams and ‘Torn’ by Natalie Imbruglia
There were some ups and downs during the X Factor live shows for Harry. In one week during the sound check he went to sing but couldn’t; he felt as if he was going to be sick. He was taken to the doctors but it turned out he had just had very bad stage fright. Poor Harry! The other boys rallied round and he managed to control his nerves so that he could perform on the Saturday night. He caught a bug another week and was sick a few times, along with a few of the other contestants.
Sinitta tweeted: ‘Saw XF kids today, poor little Niall from 1 direction has a bad throat so was sent to doctor and Harry threw up again, I think he may have a bug.
‘Please put up some prayers for the wee ones, it’s bad enough without getting struck down, mind you Mary recovered in time, I hope they will.’
Rebecca Ferguson (who would eventually come second in the competition) had been ill that week, too, and revealed in an interview for the official X Factor website: ‘We’re all dropping like flies! Storm [a contestant] and Harry are seeking medical advice so we’re all really worried about them.’ However, Harry and Niall did recover enough to perform that week, which must have been a relief for Louis, Zayn and Liam.
Out of the 10 weeks of live shows, Harry was ill the most, with stage fright, stomach bugs, food poisoning and throat problems. One week Niall confessed to the official X Factor Magazine: ‘The other night we’d got some food in but Harry felt a bit sick. He ran into the toilet but I was doing a poo at the time. He’s shouting at me, “Get out the way, get out the way!”, but I can’t move because I’m on the loo. He ends up being sick into the bath. It turned out he burst blood vessels in his neck and he had to go to the doctor. He’d got food poisoning.’
DID YOU KNOW?
If Harry was having a dinner party and could invite three people, dead or alive, he would pick Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Freddie Mercury.
Another down during the live shows for Harry was in week six – Elton John week – when Aiden Grimshaw received the lowest votes and was sent home. Harry and the One Direction boys were very upset and didn’t feel he deserved to go.
DID YOU KNOW?
At bootcamp the judges and hosts had secretly written down who they thought was going to win the series. Louis Walsh had predicted that Aiden would win; Simon and Nicole thought that Gamu Nhengu would win (she didn’t make the live shows), and Dermot said Matt Cardle would be the winner.
If Simon Cowell had to say who his favourite member of One Direction is he would more than likely say that as a professional he tries not to have favourites. However, we can guess that that it might be Harry because he thinks he has a great personality and is very likeable. He liked him from his very first audition. Harry rates Simon, too, and is so grateful for everything he has done for him personally and for One Direction as a whole. When it was Simon’s birthday during their time on X Factor the boys decided to send him a joke present, as Harry explained to the Mirror: ‘For Simon Cowell’s birthday we got him a birthday card and taped £2.50 into it. That’s 50p from each of us – he can buy whatever he wants with it.’
Even though Simon liked Harry, during One Direction’s time on the show he wouldn’t give him his mobile number. ‘We would not be trusted with his number because me and Louis once gave out Matt’s number on a Twitter cam,’ Harry revealed in an interview with Hits Radio. ‘It was an accident, don’t judge us. I don’t think Simon would take it as well as Matt did.’ [The Matt Harry is talking about is Matt Cardle, who went on to win The X Factor.]
DID YOU KNOW?
Eventually the band were given Simon’s number – and decided to make prank calls to him. They put on different accents and talked about his trousers being high.
Even though Simon hadn’t thought at bootcamp that they had the potential to win the whole competition, after seeing the boys perform so well in the judges’ houses round and in the first few weeks of the live shows, Simon changed his mind. He knew that Harry, Liam, Louis, Zayn and Niall had the potential to be in The X Factor final. When Aiden left the show it was a ‘wake-up call’ for Simon because Aiden had been a strong contender, and it made him commit even more time and energy into making sure that One Direction got better each week so they could secure a place in the final.
Although Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole were mentoring the boys’ rivals they still heaped praise on them each week. In week five, after One Direction had sung ‘Kids in America’, Louis Walsh said to them, ‘What a brilliant way to end the show! Listen, everywhere I go there’s hysteria, it’s building on this band. You remind me a bit of Westlife, Take That, Boyzone… you could be the next big band. I loved everything about the performance.’
Cheryl Cole added, ‘That absolutely cheered me up and brightened up my night, I thoroughly enjoyed that performance. You are great kids: I love chatting to you backstage, you are just good lads, nice lads. Great performance, good song choice.’
The next week Dannii Minogue couldn’t get over how good they were at the Elton John classic ‘Something About the Way You Look Tonight’. ‘Guys, you are so consistent, it’s scary!’ she said in her feedback. ‘That song could have been really boring, but it was great – that’s what I would love to hear you sing at your concerts, which I’m sure you will be doing one day [crowd cheers].’
Simon Cowell then made an announcement, telling everyone watching how much confidence he had in Harry, Zayn, Liam, Louis and Niall. ‘This is the first time in all the years of X Factor where I genuinely believe a group are going to win this competition,’ he proclaimed. ‘And you know what? I want to say this, what was so impressive, you’ve seen the girls and anything else, and you’ve remained focused; you’ve been really nice to the crew, you’re nice to the fans and most importantly, everything that happened tonight from the choice of song to what you wore, it was all down to you. Guys, congratulations!’
DID YOU KNOW?
In week eight – Rock week – Simon didn’t choose the song ‘Summer of ’69’ for the boys to sing, Harry did! He picked it because it was the first song that he ever performed with his band, White Eskimo. It means a lot to him and he thought One Direction could do a great version. He also chose The Lion King song, ‘Something About the Way You Look Tonight’, for Elton John week (week six) because it’s a song he really loves.
After sailing through the semi-final after nine long weeks (and 11 amazing performances) the boys made it to the final, along with Matt Cardle, Cher Lloyd and Rebecca Ferguson. Harry’s whole family were ecstatic; they’d been to every live show to cheer him on and put up with butterflies in their stomachs every Sunday night while they waited to hear if One Direction were in the bottom two or whether they’d be staying in for another week. Gemma was so proud of Harry that she didn’t want to take off the special wristband she was given each week, but she had to in the end because her arm was full of them! She kept the week one wristband on, though.
In the days leading up to the final they got to visit home, and for Harry that meant going back to Holmes Chapel. The head teacher of Hermitage Primary School, Helen Jarrold, was so excited she allowed all the pupils from the school to walk down in their class groups to the village so they could support Harry; the cameras filmed at the school as the children waved flags they had made. Afterwards, they put up photos on the school website and had them up on a flat screen in the school’s entrance for any visitors or parents to see.
In the final they sang ‘Your Song’, ‘She’s the One’ and ‘Torn’. Sadly for Harry and the rest of One Direction they didn’t win the show but finished in third place. The boys were all gutted and although they didn’t cry on stage they shed plenty of tears afterwards. They really thought they were going to be the