'You can’t judge that you just have to be honoured' : Nicole Scherzinger breaks down in tears as 16-year-old Ella Henderson performs

PUBLISHED: 21:34, 23 September 2012 | UPDATED: 07:47, 24 September 2012

There were plenty of tears from the contestants on tonight's episode of the X Factor but one young star left Nicole Scherzinger weeping.

Ella Henderson wowed the judges and the crowd with her performance of Cher's track Believe but the former Pussycat Doll singer couldn't hold back her tears.

The 16-year-old contestant showed off her impressive vocals as she performed her own unique take on the track as she finished the song to a standing ovation.

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Impressive: Ella Henderson left Nicole Scherzinger in floods of tears with her performance of Cher's track Believe

And after she had left the stage Nicole gushed about the teenager to the other judges as she tried to stop crying.

Nicole said: 'You can’t judge that you just have to be honoured.'

She added: 'We can’t touch her, we just have to be in awe of her. I’m done.'

She's through: Ella's talent has earned her a place at the judges' houses stages of the competition

Welling up

Ahead of her stellar performance Ella explained her unusual song choice: 'Instead of just doing a song that I’d normally just go for and be like ‘yeh I can do that’ I wanted to challenge myself a bit more and pick a song that was completely out of the box and out of my comfort zone. I keep going through it in my head and trying to put my twist on it because it so different from what I’d normally do. I really hope they like it.'

The judges didn't just like it, they loved it and Gary said: 'I’ve got to say, when I read you were going to sing that song, if I was going to have a top five of the most annoying songs of all time, that would come fairly close to the top for me, but today I would pay lots of money to hear that version of the song again. That was amazing, well done.'