Biography
X Factor 2010 Winner, Matt Cardle, is a 27-year old former painter and decorator from Colchester in Essex. He won X Factor’s seventh series in December, 2010, beating Rebecca Ferguson in the final, along with teen boy band One Direction who placed third and Cher Lloyd, who placed fourth. He received 44.6% of the public vote in the final.
When he won, Matt Cardle kissed goodbye forever to pots of white emulsion and trousered a cool £1million recording contract with Syco Music. Matt’s first solo single When We Collide – a cover version of Scottish band Biffy Clyro’s Many Of Horror – was released immediately after the X Factor final.
Matt Cardle’s first number one single, however, was Heroes which was recorded by all the X Factor finalists. It topped the charts in it’s first week of release, shifting 144,000 copies.
Originally from Little Maplestead, Essex, Matt was diagnosed with Wilms’ tumour, a form of cancer, when he was a toddler. “I was young but I knew I was seriously ill and that I was in hospital,” he says, “I had cancer in my kidney and I ended up having to have one removed. I had a slight complication with the operation, but when you're a kid you bounce back… It was caught quite early and I was all right. But it could have been worse.”
Before hitting the X Factor headlines, Matt Cardle had previously been a singer in a number of different bands. Most recently his high pitched warbling could have been heard with a rock band called Seven Summers. He was both the frontman and a guitarist in the band, who released a self-titled album on January 22nd, 2010. They also performed live on Sue Merchant’s BBC radio program in December 2009.
At his first X Factor audition Matt Cardle sang You Know I’m No Good. Having made it through the X Factor bootcamp and judges houses phase, Matt found himself in the Boys category being mentored by Dannii Minogue.
Incredibly, from Week 2 onwards, Matt Cardle received the most public votes every single week of the competition and never had to face the public sing off.
In the X Factor final he sang a raunchy Unfaithful duet with Rihanna. His best week though was, arguably, Week 5 when he sang Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
Hunky Matt has also been linked with countless X Factor-related women, including Katie Waissel – an alleged encounter that he vehemently denies – and stylist / Britain’s Next Top Model judge, Grace Woodward.
The good news though, is that he is currently single, and has no plans to start any kind of relationship any time soon.