History Series / TheXFactor

** In the final regular series, Greek/Armenian rnb singer and songwriter Athena Manoukian doing the 50 Shades version of Crazy In Love left the male judges in a state of shock, and led to Robbie leaving his wife Ayda confused.

** Lucy Spraggan from 2012 become the third victim of those trope, although unlike Emily and Frankie, she wasn't evicted from the competition, she quit due to her falling health.

It's basically the same as ''Pop Idol'' (and ''Series/AmericanIdol'') except the contestants are split into categories. The categories originally consisted of 16-24 year olds, Over 25's and Groups. However with the addition of a fourth judge in Series 4 (2007), The 16-24 category was split into boys aged 16-24 (16-27 in 2010) and girls aged 16-24 (16-27 in 2010/2) with the Over 25's (Over 28's in 2010/2) and the Groups categories remaining the same to give four categories in total. After the initial round of [[HopelessAuditionees frankly embarrassing auditions,]] each Judge is randomly assigned a category and has to coach his or her group up until the weekly live shows, which enters a FinalBattle where the losers are voted off by telephone polls until [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne only one remains.]] After that, the winners pump out one guaranteed hit single (usually that year's Christmas Number One) -- because the show is literally a two-month advertisement for their single -- before becoming an answer in a pub quiz. It is worth noting, though, that five of the show's fifteen winners (notably Music/LeonaLewis and Music/LittleMix, who are the only successful contestants off of their respective series; Music/AlexandraBurke, Shayne Ward, and James Arthur have done quite well, but didn't overshadow the other contestants the way the first two did.) have actually achieved continued success since their debut single, with Little Mix having released a top 10 single in the UK every year since their win, and therefore for 10 years in a row. There have been other cases where contestants who didn't win have gone on to be arguably more successful than the winners of their series (the most significant example being Music/OneDirection; although JLS, Olly Murs, and Music/CherLloyd have also been quite successful). UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} also has the super successful Reece Mastin, Music/SamanthaJade, Music/DamiIm, and Taylor Henderson. However, since series 10, few contestants have gone on to have more than 1 chart hit if any, and many later series saw established acts like former girlgroup members, former ''Series/EurovisionSongContest'' or Eurovision selection process contestants, both at standard and junior level, and former songwriters including a vocalist of a famous EDM hit, involved in the auditions at least, passing their auditions and getting publicity, but with varying fortunes in subsequent stages.

* '''Season 9 (2012)''': James Arthur, Boys, Nicole Scherzinger

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* ButNotTooBlack: Predictably, this accusation was thrown at Leona Lewis a lot when she won the show, even though it happens to be a BerserkButton of hers. More surprisingly however, it was also thrown at Alexandra Burke and JLS when they were the final two in 2008, the idea apparently being that viewers really voted for their ''judges'' (Cheryl and Louis Walsh respectively) and that their presence in the final didn't really prove anything. At least one prominent black UK academic went on record in 2011 as saying that he would only consider a Kelly Rowland/Misha B victory as proof the the British public can truly accept black musicians.
** While Leigh-Anne from Little Mix won during her year, she is still 1/4 of a group.
** Rak Su, a culturally diverse band of friends from Watford, won in 2017 (under Simon Cowell)
** Jamacian born Dalton Harris won the 2018 series, but, despite the popularity of his triumph, it was widely seen that the status of Louis Tomlinson, the ex-1D member, as the mentor of his triumph, helped, as Louis' fanpages were strongly supportive of his acts.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Diana Vickers, Janet Devlin, and Emily Middlemas from series 5, 8, and 13, respectively, often had a tendency of performing barefoot.

** The lead singer of Triple Trouble actually returned in the 2011 auditions, intending to put in a better performance and make up for his idiotic behaviour two years previously, claiming he had fully matured and had actually learned how to sing. The second he opened his mouth it was clear that ''[[BlatantLies he still couldn't sing]]'' and was soon stopped by the judges. The instant that happened he marched up to Tulisa and interrogated her over why she had stopped the music, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Gary Barlow was the one who ''actually'' stopped it. Eventually, security had to be called to pull him away, after which the judges called him out on his attitude (Gary even told him that he "[[IronicEcho had matured]] [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments like a bad curry]]") and told him, that in their opinion, he was talentless. He responded with "That's all fine and good, now let me give you ''[[OhCrap my opinion]]''". What followed was him verbally assaulting Tulisa, calling her "a scumbag", "a little bitch" and comparing her unfavourably to Cheryl Cole and ultimately concluded with him being escorted away by security while flipping off the judges. Louis deemed him "[[KickTheSonOfABitch completely talentless]]" and after he went on a rant backstage, ''[[BewareTheNiceOnes Dermot]]'' snapped at him to watch his mouth before he finally left the building. Also, this gave him the unusual distinction of being the first ''and'' fourth act to get booed off the stage (the second being the aforementioned Ablisa, and the third being a Music/MichaelJackson impersonator -- who proceeded to make his own return a couple of episodes later, where he unsurprisingly became the fifth act to get booed off).

** Series 7: Played straight. Winner Matt Cardle suffered a troubled relationship with Simon Cowell, and while his career didn't live up to the utter domination he had over the contest, he had a positively-received run on the West End's staging of ''Theatre/{{Memphis}}''. This in turn lead him to a well-received musical theater career while still having a modestly-selling recording career. On the other hand, second-placed Rebecca Ferguson has been reasonably successful, but not as much as fourth-placed Cher Lloyd. But their success is nothing compared to third-placed One Direction, who skyrocketed to international superstardom, dethroned Music/JustinBieber as the number-one teenage obsession and became a major catalyst in his declining popularity, denied [[Music/TheWanted a rival boy band]] from having a similar level of popularity, and are far and away the show's most successful act, ''ever''.
** Series 8: Averted. Winners Little Mix have enjoyed reasonable and consistent success, which grew over a long period, becoming the first winner who had a later album and single more successful than their first original ones. This has continued in spite of various disputes with them, the label, and management forcing a label transfer just days before the release of their 5th album. In contrast, runner-up Marcus Collins seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, settling for Theatre, though remaining a close friend of Jade from the former.

*** Ella Henderson- who placed 6th- waited 19 months to release a single- and it than sauntered towards number one on iTunes beating the second place by 2 sales to 1. It became the fastest seller by a British act at that point of the year. The album also got number 1, but various contractual problems have meant that a second album has remained on ice for years, with numerous label changes, though now on that of Rudimental.

*** Little Mix have released a top 10 single in the UK every year for 10 years in a row, whilst fellow winner James Arthur, fellow 2012 contestants James Arthur and Ella Henderson (and Rylan, though as a broadcaster), and ex-1D members Harry Styles and Niall Horan, have also displayed a high degree of longevity.

* MuppetCameo: In the November 27, 2011 episode, Olly Murs sang "Dance With Me Tonight" as a duet with Miss Piggy, with Fozzie, Animal, penguins and Statler and Waldorf also appearing. This was used as a bonus track on the UK release of ''Film/TheMuppets'' soundtrack.

* {{Filler}}

* HopelessAuditionees

** Series 14: Rak-Su have toured with Little Mix, but their first post XF song , with Canadian DJs Banx and Ranx, hasn't charted, although it was just a preview song, and a second song with them has started to scale the iTunes chart with Simon Cowell setting them up as the heirs to 1D, although with presently modest results. However, runner up Grace hasn't even got that far, at least not yet. Maybe promoting on XF will boost both of them. Since than, Rak-Su, along with the icons they have supported on tour, were transferred out of Syco to another label after various rumoured disputes between the label, management and acts. Grace hasn't began yet.

* TheMeanBrit: Need we say? Averted in the case of Louis Walsh... although this is because of the fact that he's Irish, rather than him being especially nice.
** With Simon's departure for the U.S., Gary Barlow has succeeded him as the Mean Brit for Series 8.
** [[Music/SpiceGirls "Scary Spice" Mel B]] plays this trope in the Australian version. Her guest judge stint in Series 9 of the British version (which included [[KickTheDog telling an octogenarian he bored her to sleep]]) prompted "What the Hell?" reactions from Gary, Louis, Tulisa and the audience. And in Series 11, she may be surpassing Simon in toughness and bluntness towards the contestants.