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"Laura White had been tipped to make the final ever since Boot Camp, with Dannii Minogue and reigning champ Leon Jackson calling her the &amp;quot;one to beat&amp;quot;, but her X Factor journey came to an abrupt halt on Saturday. Does she blame her performance for her premature exit? Her image? Or the way she was portrayed in the press? We called the 21-year-old Bolton girl to find out. How are you bearing up today? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m doing okay, but it&amp;#039;s definitely been a shock. The judges believed in me so much right from the start so I don&amp;#039;t know what&amp;#039;s gone wrong.&amp;quot; Why do you think your performance didn&amp;#039;t connect with the public? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve watched my performance back and I don&amp;#039;t actually think it was anything to do with my performance. Cheryl thinks the public thought they didn&amp;#039;t need to vote for me because they were confident I&amp;#039;d be safe. I&amp;#039;m not sure to be honest.&amp;quot; A couple of weeks ago a newspaper claimed you were dating an X Factor producer. Do you think that might have affected your popularity? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve asked people about that and they don&amp;#039;t think it had any effect on my vote. [My boyfriend] is a man who does audiences for the show but he has no insight into The X Factor whatsoever - and that&amp;#039;s now been proved because obviously I&amp;#039;ve been voted off. I had no involvement at all with anyone from The X Factor, but I just had to plod along and hope people didn&amp;#039;t believe the lies.&amp;quot; How did you feel when you read that story? &amp;quot;It was very difficult for me to take in because I&amp;#039;ve been working for years as a singer, songwriter and musician. I finally got my break on The X Factor and I just wanted to be portrayed in the best and most realistic way possible. The story made me look like I was less of a person than I actually am and it showed me in a negative light, which I was very unhappy about.&amp;quot; Louis said he saved Ruth because she had &amp;quot;more fight&amp;quot; left in her. Do you think that was the case? &amp;quot;Not at all. I&amp;#039;ve been doing three gigs a week since I was 15 and I&amp;#039;ve literally dedicated my life to my music, so nobody&amp;#039;s fought harder than me. Cheryl thinks Louis&amp;#039;s decision was tactical, but I can&amp;#039;t say anything because I think Ruth is amazing. She sang so well and for whatever reason the judges decided to send me home.&amp;quot; Last week Simon criticised the image you projected on the show. How did his comments make you feel? &amp;quot;It was difficult to hear, but I understood what he meant. At Boot Camp I had my own quirky, jazzy style and I think that was taken away because we did a different genre every week. One week it was big band week, so I wore a big dress, and this week was Mariah week, so I was obviously going to wear something elegant. I went with the genres, so my image was definitely taken away in that sense. I&amp;#039;m so grateful that I got onto the show, but I do question if I&amp;#039;ve done the right thing with image.&amp;quot; Is it true that the results from the first four shows were leaked to the contestants this week? &amp;quot;No, that&amp;#039;s not true at all. I wish they had been, it would have given me a bit of confidence if I&amp;#039;d done well!&amp;quot; So there was no tension between you and Diana? &amp;quot;No, Diana was my best friend from the start and we shared a room in the X Factor house, so it would have been a bit difficult if we hadn&amp;#039;t got on. I met Diana at the &amp;quot;judges&amp;#039; houses&amp;quot; stage and we clicked straight away. On Saturday when I went back to the house she was the first person to comfort me. Diana had said from the start I was going to make the final so she just couldn&amp;#039;t believe what had happened.&amp;quot; Do you think she should have been allowed a free pass to the next round? &amp;quot;Yeah, I definitely do. Diana was a very ill girl and if she&amp;#039;d have sung her voice would have gone. I don&amp;#039;t feel any anger at all and what happened couldn&amp;#039;t have been helped. She was ill and that was that.&amp;quot; The X Factor continues Saturday at 7.20pm on ITV1. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-x-factor/interviews/a135153/laura-white/>