It was my time to go, admits X Factor's Hannah

It leaves Foster as the only remaining contestant in mentor Nicole Scherzinger’s girls category.

Barrett said: “There’s times when you need to go and I think my time was to go this week. That’s why I’m not really that upset or down about it.

“I knew that if I’d already been in the bottom two twice, there was a possibility I could be in it again and if I was then I was going home. I think the public thought I was safe, as usual.”

Foster, 16, managed to avoid the bottom two, despite forgetting the lyrics to her song again on Saturday.

Hannah said of her team mate: “At this point there’s no room for mistakes. She does need to up her game this week and she will do that – I know what she’s like, she’s a hard working girl.

“At the end of the day, it’s the British public that vote and I think the British public usually vote a lot more when someone’s made a mistake or been in the bottom two.”

[comment] Tamera Foster[/comment]

The singer from Croydon, south London, had been subjected to racist abuse on Twitter during the competition and explained how she had managed to deal with it:

“I’ve realised on this journey that these people are so small-minded and they want to let out certain feelings that they’ve been holding up and they just carry so much hate.

“I’m not going to be bothered. I’ve learned how to get over things like that, so if I see a bad comment I’m just like: ’Ok, whatever, yeah.”’

She also got back in touch with her mum in recent weeks, having lived apart following a family fight.

Hannah said: “She came last week and this week and she felt really good.”

Hannah said she believed Sam Bailey would be the winner: “All of us are quite young, but Sam Bailey, she’s a wife, she’s a mum, she hasn’t had her time yet.

“She sings like she’s had her time, but she hasn’t had her time yet and I feel like she deserves to have her time.”