It was 2016 when Matt Terry was crowned winner of The X Factor, back at a time when the show was utterly ubiquitous and Simon Cowell’s face seemed to permanently hover over the nation. But when Terry’s Christmas single ‘only’ hit number three, loosening Cowell’s grip on the festive top spot, Terry was branded a failure by the media. While he went on to release an album and work with some of the biggest names in pop, things were difficult, to say the least. Speaking to the Standard as he continues his pop comeback, he says things were made even worse by some of the machinations of the team he was working under who wanted to control his image.
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” he says, “And having to walk around this country as an X Factor winner has been hard.”
