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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Monkey

The X Factor: Nikki Jamal's late luck

Nikki Jamal and Eldar Gasimov
Nikki Jamal with Eldar Gasimov ... she swapped Croydon for the Caspian sea. Photograph: Joerg Carstensen/EPA

It was one of those twists of fate on which careers are born and destinies decided. Sometimes. Eurovision winner Nikki Jamal has revealed she nearly didn't enter the pan-Euro warblethon because she wanted to be on The X Factor instead, reports the Sun. Fortunately for her, as it turned out, she narrowly missed the deadline for Simon Cowell's ITV1 show and went on to win Eurovision for Azerbaijan. Now she is mobbed in the former Soviet republic on the Caspian sea instead of HMV in Croydon.

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