X FACTOR: The Final 12

The competition heated up this week with the announcement of the final 12 contestants.

Each group were whisked away to a luxurious location where they had to learn a song chosen by their mentors to perform.

The girls were flown out to France with Cheryl Cole and her fellow Girls Aloud band-mate Kimberley Walsh.

All six of the chosen girls performed in front of the sympathetic pair hoping that their performance was enough to see them through to the live shows.

Amy Connolly – a girl who reduced Cheryl to tears in a previous audition – felt the strain stopping half way through her song.

At the end of an emotional set of auditions Cheryl felt that the three girls who showed the most star quality were Diana, Laura and Alexandra.

The lucky over 25s were flown to St Tropez with Danni Minogue and Emma Bunton but there was no time for them to enjoy the sunshine.
 
Emma loved Spanish girl Ruth Lorenzo and Danni admitted that 38 –year – old Daniel has a likeable quality. Ruth, the controversial Rachel and Daniel made it through as the final three over 25s.

Next up were the groups who joined Louis Walsh and Westlife’s Shane in Dublin.

It was a close call between the groups with a lot of talent on display, but in the end Louis and Shane decided that JLS, Bad Lashes and Girl Bad were the groups to go through.  

And last but by no means least were the boys who flew to Barbados with Simon Cowell.

Simon didn’t give the boys any chance to be complacent, admitting “I don’t think they are going to be as good as they think they are going to be!”

But they put on the performance of their lives and even impressed a stoney faced Simon with the final three boys in next week’s show as: Scott, Eoghan and Austin.