X Factor’s Andrea Faustini has SING-OFF MELTDOWN and barricades himself in hotel room for 12 hours

X Factor contestant Andrea Faustini sparked panic amongst show bosses after suffering a huge meltdown and shutting himself in a hotel room for 12 hours.

The aspiring popstar found himself in the bottom two acts during the results show of the television talent contest on Sunday and had to compete in a sing-off against fellow contestant Stevi Ritchie.

Stevi was given the boot from the competition by the judges with Andrea getting a vote from each panelist apart from Simon Cowell, who was Stevi’s mentor.

When the cameras were off, Andrea ran out of the studio in floods of tears before locking himself in the hotel room his sister Elena was staying in, according to The Sun.

The singer eventually came out of the room the next day but producers are worried about his appearance on the programme this weekend.

A source said: “Andrea was riding high and had an awfully long way to fall.”

On Monday, Andrea tweeted: “Yesterday was very hard, but now I wanna be stronger than ever! THANK YOU for your incredible support … that means so much to me!”

X Factor boss Simon is backing his acts Fleur East and Ben Haenow to win and has even bluntly said he doesn’t want Andrea to triumph.

He said: “As long as Fleur and Ben are in [the final], we’ll have a proper final – where you just don’t know who’s going to win. I love that idea.”

When asked if he wanted Andrea to win, he replied: “No, because I think he’s peaked. It’s the same thing week after week.”

Meanwhile, Andrea’s odds to win have been trimmed after last week’s turn of events – he’s now in third place behind Fleur and Ben but is still ahead of Lauren Platt and Stereo Kicks.

William Hill spokesperson Rupert Adams said: “How the mighty have fallen. Just a week ago Andrea was the red hot favourite to win the million pound recording contract, now he could be the next out.”

Aww, poor Andrea…

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