Fury at yet another ‘fake’ story on X Factor
HANNAH Marie Kilminster may have wooed X Factor with her tale of a simple farm girl, but it turns out she has a long history singing soprano – with links to Simon Cowell.
WHEN she stood nervously in front of The X Factor judges, Hannah Marie Kilminster claimed to be a farmer’s daughter more used to mucking out pigs than belting out hits.
But it seems the 30-year-old, who powerfully sang Queen’s Somebody To Love, was not quite the ‘country bumpkin’ she had been labelled by Cheryl Fernandez-Versini – and viewers outed her on social media as being economical with the truth.
The talent show hopeful told viewers she lived on her parents’ farm in rural England where she tended cows, chickens, sheep and pigs. She declared: ‘I haven’t been to many auditions. Being stuck on a farm, you don’t get much opportunity apart from singing to the animals.’
However, within minutes of her audition on Sunday, viewers circulated a screenshot of her profile on a talent website, which detailed her substantial experience as a singer.
On Twitter, some declared the show a ‘fix’ after realising Ms Kilminster had starred on Simon Cowell’s Britain’s Got Talent, where she performed as a backing singer in 2011. She has also performed as a lead soprano with classical music group Il Divo, who are signed to Cowell’s label Syco, and in musicals The Wizard Of Oz and Cinderella. One viewer wrote: ‘So that amazing “country bumpkin” is a full time paid professional and has a career in music already.’ Another added: ‘Think Hannah Kilminster forgot she is a professionally trained singer. Also worked on BGT. Simon must have had memory loss.’
According to her online CV, Ms Kilminster studied at the Northern School of Classical Music and Drama. Her singing profile on website StarNow appeared to have been deleted last night after it was widely shared on Twitter. Another profile still listed her as having experience singing for TV and on cruise ships. The latest series of X Factor has already faced criticism for auditioning acts who already have a wealth of professional credits.
An X Factor spokesman said: ‘Hannah grew up and worked on her family farm. As an aspiring professional singer, Hannah has done occasional performing jobs in the past, but has never made a full-time living out of it or done anything on the scale of her X Factor audition.’