ITV's Walk The Line has been branded a fix as winner Nadiah Adu-Gyamfi has already had top 5 hit in the UK charts.
The 30-year-old singer won the £500,000 prize during Friday night’s live final, which saw her take home the prize after turning down £20,000 in an effort to scoop the jackpot.
But she has been forced to defend herself after viewers branded the show a fix, because Nadiah has already had chart success.
She appeared under her former stage name of Moko on Chase & Status’ 2013 hit Count on Me, and also headlined the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury that same year.
She was also signed to a record label, and fans of the show were furious, and thought they had been duped.
"Just a fix Nadiah (Moko) has two records and signed up to record labels. I feel sorry for the other acts who were just cannon fodder,” one disgruntled viewer posted on Twitter.
“A totally flawed concept,” another fan wrote, as they alleged the final was ‘fixed’.
But the musician said she hadn’t performed under the name Moko for ‘seven years’ as she addressed claims the show was fixed.
“In 2014 I chose to go independent and ever since then have been an unsigned and self-managed full-time musician” she told The Sun.
A source told the outlet that Simon’s new show was ‘never about finding unknowns’ but about ‘giving great singers a platform’.
“Some of the acts are already full-time musicians,” they added.
Nadiah said she wasn’t ‘worth millions of pounds’ and had decided to start afresh and launch a music career under her own name on the ITV show.
“I am grateful this show has given me the opportunity to show people who I really am and start afresh simply as Nadiah,” she said.
The six-part series has been a slow-burning success with viewers, as they tune on the ITV Hub to catch up on the show, but it’s been trounced in the ratings.
According to Digital-i media consultancy, the BBC Two quiz show Only Connect, Victoria Coren-Mitchell, had raked in more than 600,000 viewers than the singing competition.
Monday’s episode attracted only 2.1million viewers, while the audience for Only Connect was 2.7million.
“The audience is increasing on catch-up, and it is the top title on ITV Hub this week,” a spokesperson for ITV said.
