Simon Cowell signs X Factor’s Fleur East to his Syco record label

Remember when Ben Haenow won The X Factor last year and everyone screamed a collective “WHAT THE”?

Well, yes, that wasn’t just a dream and Ben did in fact triumph over Fleur East despite Simon Cowell’s best attempts to hide that she was pretty much his favourite.

So it's now time for possibly the most unsurprising-but-all-very-nice-just-the-same news story of the year – Fleur has signed to Simon’s record label Syco.

Not being a winner of The X Factor doesn’t mean you’re going to be a failure in the charts (oh, hi One Direction) so Fleur still stands a pretty good chance of carving out a successful career.

And even though Ben beat Fleur in the public vote every week in the last series of the show, this goes to prove it doesn’t matter what the viewers think. Nice.

Fleur’s contract was finalised last week and it’s the first time the head judge of an ITV talent show will be personally overseeing the career of a second-place act, according to The Sun.

An insider told the paper: “It’s unprecedented for Simon to personally sign one of the runners-up. But it’s a sign he believes Fleur is going to be a massive star.”

It’s a match made in music heaven...

GALLERY: The X Factor 2014 finalists from the judges' houses stage of the competition