Jake Quickenden gutted he wasn’t allowed to perform his own songs on the X Factor

The 26-year-old’s departure caused uproar, with some fans calling the show a fix, but Jake has exclusively told heat he’s excited about the future because he’ll finally being able to sing his own songs again.

“I am absolutely gutted [I didn’t get to sing original songs],” Jake told us this morning.

“I’d have loved to have done that. I wanted to put original verses into some stuff, like a rap into one song…[but it didn’t happen].

“That’s when I’m strongest, singing my own stuff with a guitar – even if I didn’t have my guitar and had production behind it, at least it would be my own song. I feel gutted I didn’t get a chance to sing my own stuff but at least now I get to release my own stuff – I’m planning on putting out an EP with five original tracks on. I think I’ve got about five albums worth of my own songs.”

Jake, from Scunthorpe, also told us he worried he wasn’t able to give every performance his all because of the limited choice, adding: “I wasn’t at my strongest in any of the weeks. It’s a shame I never got to be at 100% and smash it and for the judges to say ‘wow’.

“Hopefully now people that thought I was sh** might listen [to my own songs] and be like, ‘wow, he’s actually pretty good.’”

An X Factor insider told us that the finalists were allowed to perform their own songs, saying: “If a self- penned song is appropriate to the theme they can sing this.”

Erm, we'd have to assume nothing in Jake’s repertoire would do then. Such a shame.