Viewers were shocked when girls’ mentor Cheryl Cole opted to take the flaky Cher Lloyd, Katie Waissel, Treyc Cohen and Rebecca Ferguson through to the live finals, instead of the delightful and innovative Zimbabwean. But not making the finals proved to be only the start of the story. Gamu then faced deportation back to Zimbabwe along with her mother and siblings after it was revealed that the Home Office had ruled that the family must be sent back.
Almost three years on and following a successful appeal, Gamu, 21, is now settled in Scotland and even has her own record deal.
“I was asked to audition again, but I turned it down because I felt ready to do my own thing,” she said.
Despite the outrage from viewers over her axe and the stress it caused, Gamu insisted she had “no regrets” about auditioning.
“It’s just going to make a great chapter in the biography — the experience has made me a much stronger, compassionate person,” she told the Daily Mail. “I thought I was mature at 18, but what happened taught me to see the world from a whole different perspective. Now there’s nothing I am not ready for.
“I’m more happy and centred myself. I’m not aiming to be on the cover of every magazine. I just want to concentrate on my music.”
Gamu released her first single in April; the Motown-inspired bounce of Shake the Room. Her debut album, A Love Like This, released on Glasgow label GSound, follows this summer. But talent and exposure do not guarantee success. Matt Cardle, who won X Factor in Gamu’s year might just as well have been an apparition, and runner-up Rebecca Ferguson has become so disillusioned with the music business and its incompatibility with her creativity, that she is considering giving it up after her second album.
Gamu is under no illusions. “If the album doesn’t do as amazingly as the team think it will do, it’s back to university for next year,” she says. “I already have the application sitting waiting.”
