Does X Factor’s Lauren Murray blame Cheryl Fernandez-Versini for show exit?

Lauren Murray has criticised Cheryl Fernandez-Versini for voting her off The X Factor on Sunday night and blamed her failure to make it to the final next week on a panic attack.

The aspiring pop star, who was mentored by judge Rita Ora this series, was seen in floods of tears as she took to the stage to sing for survival yesterday evening.

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But the singer insists it wasn’t the prospect of being sent home that upset her, but that she panicked and didn’t want to compete against fellow contestant Che Chesterman.

She told RadioTimes.com: “I’d done the bottom two last week so I was like, right, I’ve done it now, that’s fine. It was being up against Che.

“Being in the bottom two is hard, but to sing against basically my best friend in the competition was like…yeah, it was emotional.”

Lauren froze backstage seconds before she was due to perform in a bid to save her place in the competition and had to be ordered onto the stage by Che.

She said: “I was just crying. I was like, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it.’ I was literally starting to have a panic attack. Che was like, ‘You’ve got to.’ Then the doors started opening and I just had to walk out. It was hard. It was really hard.

“Che was really calm. I think he knew if he wasn’t, I would have been worse, so he literally had to be like, ‘Stop it.’ But it was really difficult.”

Lauren managed to get through the song despite her fake eyelashes falling off because she was crying so much and struggling to sing again after being ill last week.

The judges eventually took the vote to deadlock, meaning the person who went was down to the amount of public votes, but Lauren wasn’t impressed with Cheryl’s reason for choosing her to go at first.

The former Girls Aloud star thought her emotional reaction to being in the sing-off last night meant she wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of the final, despite Lauren being in the bottom two before.

Lauren said: “I’ve come this far. It’s been two months of filming and that’s never happened. I was in the bottom two last week. I had a bad week, I was sick, I was up against Che, I’d just had enough to be honest with you.

“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But as you can see, the proof’s been on the TV, that’s never happened before.”

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