X Factor starts again tonight - with Barlow in hot seat
Gary Barlow
Love it or hate it, The X Factor is back tonight.
The new season includes a shake-up on the judging panel.
Despite fears it won't be the same without Simon Cowell, new 'head judge' Gary Barlow says he, Kelly Rowland, Tulisa and Louis Walsh have what it takes - and said he had been taking advice from Cowell before stepping into his shoes.
The singer said it was “a little strange” joining the judging panel on the hit ITV1 show.
Viewers will get their first look at Barlow and fellow debutants Kelly Rowland and Tulisa Contostavlos tonight as they join show veteran Louis Walsh on the panel.
The trio replaced Cheryl Cole, Dannii Minogue and Cowell, who is busy with his US version of the show.
Barlow said: “I spent a little bit of time with Simon warning me what it’s going to be like and how to be and he said what everyone said to me, ’just be yourself’. It’s been tough, it really has, I think the hardest thing is learning to really be you on camera.”
Fellow judge Tulisa said her new role was her “dream job”.
In comments on the show’s official website, she said: “I think it was about three years ago now, I was sitting at home watching the X Factor at Christmas and I think I turned around to my dad and said ’I could do that’.
“I said ’that is actually my dream job’ and then all of a sudden three years later I got the call and here I am now, a judge on X Factor.”
Among the acts on the show tonight are cheeky 18-year-old Frankie Cocozza from Brighton.
The teenager told the panel he had the names of seven different girls he met on holiday tattooed on his backside and then bared all to prove it.
Also on the show is shy Janet Devlin. The singer from Northern Ireland goes down a storm with her version of Elton John’s Your Song.
The X Factor starts on ITV1 at 8pm.
