Is anyone else remembering Alison Hammond auditioning for The X Factor? Our brains are blown…
Maybe her audition wasn’t entirely genuine, but judges Sharon Osbourne, Simon Cowell, and Louis Walsh all believed it was.
On Friday’s This Morning, Sharon joined Alison and co-host Dermot O’Leary in reminiscing about their first meetings with Mrs O.
Dermot, of course, hosted The X Factor for eight years, beginning in 2007, while Sharon was a judge.
But Alison was on the other side of the table, doing a phoney audition.
Of the embarrassing moment, she recalled to Sharon: ‘You probably won’t remember when you first met me, because I was doing a behind the scenes on X Factor.
‘They said, “Right, Alison, you’re gonna do an audition,” and I said, “Well, let the judges know that it’s just a joke and that I’m not really auditioning.”
‘They went, “No, we’re not gonna tell them”.’
‘Here’s what happened, I’ve never been so nervous in my life,’ Alison said, introducing a clip of the iconic moment.
What followed was pure gold, with footage showing a younger Alison screaming out a song for the judges in her worst singing voice.
In fact, before she’d even started singing, Simon muttered: ‘Oh God, I’ve got better things to do with my time.’
Alison proceeded to give it her all, while Sharon exclaimed: ‘This is just a wind-up.’
However, it didn’t take long for her to be stopped.
‘Alison, Alison, Alison, Alison…’, Simon begged repeatedly, waving his hand in the air.
As each judge voted, Louis declared: ‘No!’
Having none of it, Alison retorted: ‘Are you being serious, Louis?’
Certain, he added: ‘100%.’
‘No, Alison! No!’, Sharon said.
After Simon dismissed her, Alison said: ‘God, you wouldn’t know talent if it slapped you in the face.’
Ending with a hilarious remark, Sharon replied: ‘But excuse me, who is this lady?’
After seeing the tape back in 2023, Alison, Sharon, and Dermot were all in stitches in the This Morning studio.
‘You can see the nerves on my face!’, Alison said. ‘Because it turned into something real, they were, like, really debating whether I was going through or not.’
‘Really critiquing you!’, Sharon laughed.
As for Dermot, he had nothing but praise for former colleague Sharon.
‘It was my first day, the Arsenal stadium, absolutely full-on, and everything happened so quickly, people kept getting sacked all the time!
‘I was like, “How am I gonna survive this?”, and this one (Sharon) was just, like, honestly, like a second mum to me.
‘She properly welcomed me in, arm around my shoulder and what you did for me on that she was immeasurable, so thank you, Sharon.’
‘Oh please, you were such a joy to work with,’ Sharon replied.
This Morning airs weekdays at 10am on ITV and ITVX.
