Sunday night’s episode saw Lucy Spraggan, Jade Ellis and Rylan Clark make history on ITV’s flagship show X FACTOR.
The openly gay singers battled 10,000s of hopefuls to be one of the twelve contestants to make it through to the live show.
Lucy Spraggan and Jade Ellis are the first openly gay women to appear on the show. Lucy, 21 from Canterbury took to Twitter last night to say:
‘That was intense… It begins here.”
However there was a dark cloud over Rylan’s camp as an outpouring of homophobic messages flooded social networks, after his trademark larger than life reaction to the news that Nicole Scherzinger was taking him through to the live shows.
‘Is this a wind-up? Are you having me on?’ he questioned.
Rylan later added:
‘We’re going to have a right laugh.’
Despite his outrageous reaction to the news Rylan insisted that he isn’t the joke finalist of this year’s competition.
He said:
‘I think at the beginning of this process everyone looked at me as a bit of a joker and then people couldn’t be more wrong. I had to go in there and show that I can be serious and be a singer.
‘I haven’t really got that much back home, I want to turn that around I want to be achieving something rather than keep being a let-down. I have got nothing to go back to now. I’ve got too much riding on this.’
Last week we reported that some users had issued death threats to the Essex singer and reality star.
Rylan hit back on twitter saying:
‘I’ve ben [sic] told not to react to all the shit on here but I’m sorry, I’m a mouthy bastard so I’m gonna… I’ve EARNED my place at judges houses just like every other person in this comp, not everyone is going to like me, I know that, but don’t … Judge me for doing something I’ve always wanted to do, for those who are supportive thank you so much, it means the world…..’
He continued:
‘I understand I’m going to be the one you either love or hate and that’s fine, you can’t please everyone. I have a thick skin and have had to deal with things in the past. But it’s horrible when you have 250,000 people giving you abuse.
‘I’ve had death threats and I’ve been told I’m going to get bottled when I go to clubs. I’ve been told I’m going to have my face sliced open. I’m getting a lot of homophobic gay-bashing abuse which, I’m sad to say, is expected.
‘Some people are tweeting me like I’m a murderer. It’s absolutely disgusting.’
An alarming number of Twitter followers took to the micro social network to call for the death of the singer.
User @annabelphelan tweeted:
Rylan Clarke needs to die in a fire.
@elliscarr
I’m gonna kill Rylan Clarke [sic] !! Anyone fancy joining me?
Whilst other users were openly homophobic:
@Niall_Breen98
that rylan fella needs a kick in the stones… queer.
@Mariyah1993
I really dislike gay people. especially this rylan person. His gayness makes me want to stab him. Imagine that was your son? #Astagfirullah.
So far the police have not been involved and no official complaints have been lodged.
A spokesperson for XFACTOR said:
‘The welfare of our contestants is always our key priority and we work with them to provide what support is needed.’
All contestants are given briefings on social media and are encouraged to block abusive messages – or to engaged in any negative comments. Any abuse on social networks is reported to platform – and to the police if ‘deemed to be serious’
A Spokesperson for Twitter said:
‘We can’t comment on individual accounts, however we have a clear policy on our site and a process for users who want to report abuse.’
The live shows start next Saturday night at 8.10PM.