He flew the flag for Ireland on a hot air balloon at Eurovision 2017 in Kyiv. Now Brendan Murray was “Dying to Try” his luck on this year’s X Factor UK, as ITV broadcast his audition on the opening weekend.
Brendan faced the arena audience and a much-changed judging panel, with pop icon Robbie Williams, his wife actress Ayda Field and former One Direction member Louis Tomlinson joining the main man Simon Cowell.
The former Irish boyband member got off to a worrying start. As he tackled the Ella Eyre single “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off”, Simon realised something wasn’t right and stopped the audition.
“I see an issue here and the issue is I think lyrically that song didn’t suit your voice”. Fellow judge Robbie Willams agreed, “You’ve got an impossibly perfect pop voice. I think you just made the wrong song choice today”.
The judges asked the Eurovision 2017 singer to return with a different song before Simon suggested “This Woman’s Work”. Unfortunately for Brendan, he didn’t know much about the classic Kate Bush single. Trying to take in the lyrics backstage in such a short space of time, the pressure had clearly taken its toll.
Having already fluffed his lines twice on his return, Simon asked if anyone in the audience had the lyrics. Fortunately, Brendan still had his lyrics sheet tucked away in his back pocket. Singing from the sheet as Simon requested, a confident Brendan nailed the high note, just as he did in Kyiv.
All four judges gave him a standing ovation after the audition. “Congratulations, mate. You’ve just had your moment,” said Robbie. Louis felt the nerves during the performance, “You’ve got a really, really special voice. I was really hoping that you delivered and you absolutely have.” And Brendan is through to Bootcamp after receiving a yes from all four judges.
However, the British tabloid press hasn’t been as uniformly supportive as the X Factor judges. The Daily Mail has reported that Brendan’s former manager was Louis Walsh, a previous X Factor judge and close friend of Simon Cowell. The paper also noted Brendan’s Eurovision past and that he “even has his own Wikipedia page”.
What did you think of Brendan’s X Factor audition? Can he make it all the way to the live shows? Share your thoughts below!
Louis walsh has done it again… he is such a terrible performer…. wondering what made Walsh to pick him to represent ireland….
Simon would definitely know about him through Louie Walsh.
Whats with the total blanking of Eurovision….is he ashamed of it. He never mentioned it once, which means that he is keeping his profile as low as possible.He is trying to underplay how much exposure he already has. At least more people are realising how much of a sham the whole programme is. It had the lowesr viewing figures since 2004.
Aren’t Eurovision and X-Factor broadcast on competing channels in the UK? Perhaps it is that?
Uh there is so much to dislike here, virtually everything. It was probably staged from A to Z. Make him falter to generate sympathy from the audience and so as to appear like he’s just starting out. Even though he already sold his soul to Walsh and was in a boyband. Didn’t Walsh screw him over enough with his misguided Eurovision approach? He didn’t have enough yet and wants more abuse from Cowell?
Even if it was somehow scripted, I wish Brendan all the best. I couldn’t see how his career fell after ESC – just some random local performances. He has a really unusual voice and I hope he will find people who will help him to use and show it properly.
The X Factor is a sham. It’s likely that the producers approached him to go on the show, orthat Louis Walsh had a word with Simon Cowell. I’m sure it was there in the judges notes that he was to go through, and the judges knew beforehand he was one of the favored few. I suppose they could just have easily gone the other way and chewed him up and spat him out.
The X Factor is exploitative trash, but still, he deserves to do well.
If this was all staged, you think they could have staged it better! One screw up and redemption is understandable, but all this drama looks too scripted.
Had someone else screwed up like that, Simon would’ve ridiculed and bullied them to tears, but he was all nice and he even offered his own glass of water to him because Louis is the lad’s Boss!
Nowhere to go but up!
Sooo sripted
Sara Aalto had her own Wiki page didn’t she? Didn’t hear complaints there or about her time with singing competitions in Finland? Not every Irish singer is automatically big in the UK.
It’s the British tabloids so it’s not highly surprising to do some shady unethical stuff to gain some readership.