Transgender singer Felix Shepherd won enthusiastic support from all four X-Factor judges on Saturday with an emotional performance on the ITV talent show.
“I’m here to prove I’m more than just a transgender guy, and we can be overlooked. I live a normal life – I sleep in too late, I annoy my mum – I’m just an everyday sort of person,” Shepherd said.
The 20-year-old songwriting student from Birmingham earned a standing ovation from the audience when he sang Kodaline’s All I Want. He told Simon Cowell and fellow judges, Robbie Williams, Ayda Field and Louis Tomlinson, that he had been born Emily and had then undergone private treatment paid for by his mother, a nurse.
The transition resulted in the loss of his high singing voice, he said. “Obviously my voice has dropped, I had to adapt. Literally, in February I had a falsetto and it disappeared.”
The arrival of baby Colette Coco Josephine Williams, the daughter of judges Williams and Field by a surrogate mother, was also announced on Saturday.
