Are Simon Cowell, Fleur East and Ben Haenow at war?

Simon Cowell didn’t really make much of an effort to hide the fact he really, really, really, REALLY loved Fleur East during last year’s X Factor.

In fact, he seemed to like her so much, it wouldn’t have been totally surprising if he’d jumped out of his chair and rolled around kicking, screaming and crying on the floor when Ben Haenow won.

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However, Fleur insists there is no favouritism from Simon when it comes to her and Ben, who are both signed to the music mogul’s Syco record label, and she’s fed of up hearing people claim there is.

She told Digital Spy: “I don’t like hearing things like that. Obviously [The X Factor is] a competition, but me and Ben really liked each other and we were happy that we got to the final together.

“Simon devotes as much time to Ben as he does to me. I’m in the office all the time and I hear the buzz and everyone’s as excited for Ben as they are for me.

“I think there should be space for both of us to do our thing. I don’t see why we should compete with each other.”

In fact, Fleur gets on so well with Ben she was even happy to plug the singer’s new single Second Hand Heart in which he duets with former American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson.

She said: “Ben’s song’s amazing. When I first heard it I was like, ‘Wow!’”

Aww, so it’s a massive, sickly love-in with the old X Factor lot, then…

GALLERY: Loads of beautiful pictures of Ben Haenow