Joe McElderry reveals he was secretly on X Factor three years before victory

ok.co.uk:

Joe McElderry has confessed he went on The X Factor three years before winning the programme, but quit after feeling "overwhelmed".The now-30 year old explained that he was about 15 at the time that he had first auditioned for the show and made it to the bootcamp stage before deciding he wasn't "good enough" or "confident enough" to continue.

Appearing on Steph's Packed Lunch on Monday 28 February to talk about his time on the ITV show 13 years after beating Stacey Solomon, 32, and Olly Murs, 37, he explained: "So I would've been about 15. "I got to bootcamp and on the second day I was like, 'I don't like the cameras being here.' Just overwhelming," he explained as he sat across from Steph McGovern, 39, wearing a grey shirt and a leather jacket.

Get exclusive celebrity stories and fabulous photoshoots straight to your inbox with OK!'s daily newsletter He continued: "I pulled a producer to one side and I was like, 'Excuse me, I'm just going to leave now, this isn't for me.' "I don't think they'd ever really had that before.

You could tell they were a bit like, 'Sorry what?' I just said, 'I don't feel like I'm good enough and I don't feel like I'm ready or confident enough' and I left." Following his win, Joe went on to cover Miley Cyrus' hit single The Climb, which managed to fly up to number on in the UK charts.