X Factor? I'm glad it all went wrong: Her eviction caused an outcry and left her fearing jail in Zimbabwe. Now Gamu's back - and she doesn't need Simon Cowell
By DAN WOOTTON
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Big changes: Gamu has carved her own career since the X Factor in 2010
The last time I interviewed Gamu Nhengu she was a broken 18-year-old, fearful of being deported from Britain to Zimbabwe to potentially face jail, or worse punishment, under Robert Mugabe’s regime.
It was October 2010 and the sobbing teenager was at the centre of a national controversy, quickly dubbed Gamugate, following her appearance on The X Factor.
She had sailed through to the judges’ houses round, only to be booted off the talent show by Cheryl Cole.
There was public outcry — her performance was far superior to that of two successful contestants, Katie Waissel and Cher Lloyd, who had failed to even complete their songs.
As 250,000 people signed a petition demanding she be reinstated, it certainly seemed there was more to the rejection.
Within 24 hours, a possible explanation had emerged. Gamu’s newfound fame had alerted authorities to the fact that the family’s UK visa had expired and her mother, Nokuthula Ngazana, may have been illegally living in the country.
To compound matters, Gamu’s mother was being investigated for benefit fraud after claiming up to £16,000 in working tax credits.
If they did not leave the country voluntarily, they would be deported.
X Factor bosses genuinely feared for the family’s safety and Gamu said herself: ‘I’ve been in the public eye now and people there [in Zimbabwe] know I’ve fled Mugabe’s regime.
'There’s a firing squad waiting for us and they’re putting me in front of it.’
When I met her, it was at a safe house, miles from their modest home in the tiny Scottish village of Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire.
I walked away from the interview feeling overwhelming sadness. Gamu, who has a voice that melts hearts, felt her desire to launch a music career had put her family’s new life in jeopardy.
It was hard to believe there was a case to send them home, five years after seamlessly integrating into the community. But the Home Office was apparently determined to make an example of them.
What a difference two-and-a-half years makes. When I walk into the central London nightclub where our photoshoot is taking place today, Gamu is dressed in a figure-hugging, sequined silver dress.
She lies on a velvet couch, completely at ease in front of the camera. Gone is the distraught teenage girl; an assured pop star has arrived in her place.
But it wasn’t until November 2011 that the case against Gamu’s mum was thrown out, and Gamu and her two half-brothers — Milton, 14, and Marty, 12 — finally knew they wouldn’t be sent home to Africa to face an uncertain future.
Gamu admitted later that she had wept for weeks after being voted off X Factor. ‘I was convinced that my dreams of becoming a professional singer were over,’ she said.
Simon Cowell promised to help in every way he could. But Gamu has never heard from him personally since — nor, for that matter, from Cheryl Cole.
Scroll down to listen to the comeback single...
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Perhaps that’s why she rejected X Factor next time round. ‘I was asked to audition again,’ she revealed to me this week. ‘But I turned it down because I felt ready to do my own thing.’
She says she received offers from ‘every major record company’ after X Factor. ‘I was inundated. It was very overwhelming and flattering because I had the option to be a serious musician. I’d only ever gone on the show to pay for my university studies.’
And she feels no bitterness towards Cowell or Cole — ‘I wasn’t expecting anything from them. I had moved on’ — nor does she resent Cher Lloyd’s subsequent success.
‘There is no ego or chip on the shoulder with me,’ she insists. ‘I could see Cher had talent and was born to be a star. She’s worked hard and deserves it.’
With a debut single about to be released, Gamu is smiling and positive — but she feels ready to express her outrage at what happened. Gamu grew up in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, but her father died of cancer when she was three. Her mother wanted a better life in the UK for herself and her children. The youngsters were allowed to join her as her dependants because she was at a British university.
But when she became a nurse, she was advised by her accountant to claim working tax credits. It was this claim that wrongly led her to be accused of benefit fraud.
‘My mum was a single parent who was breaking her back as a nurse for our family,’ Gamu says in her unusual accent, softly Scottish but with a clear Zimbabwean twang.
‘No fraudulent activities had happened. My mum even sought advice from an accountant, who filled in all the information.’
Gamu’s mum had to stop nursing during the investigation. ‘We went from being a very normal, quiet, private, honest, loving family to face this horrible public portrayal,’ Gamu recalls.
‘When it finally got to court, we were literally there for ten minutes. The judge dismissed it so quickly.’
It turned out there had been an administrative error in the initial application. But that hasn’t stopped hateful and racist internet trolls from attacking Gamu. ‘I was targeted for the one thing that people hate the most — benefit fraud,’ she says angrily.
‘Kids commit suicide over internet bullying. But I have learned to have a thicker skin now, even though I am naturally quite sensitive. I never Google myself or read comments online.’
Gamu hasn’t returned to Zimbabwe since the controversy. But she longs for the day when she feels safe to go back because ‘half of my family is there’.
She is at pains to point out she is proud of her heritage. ‘I was scared to go back because it had been made out that I had been embarrassed to be Zimbabwean. But at no point did I deny it. I could have changed my name, but I never did.’
But in other ways, the stress of the immigration fight was too much. She cut ties with the management company X Factor had provided for her and moved back to Scotland.
Ordeal: Gamu leaving an Immigration Tribunal in Glasgow in 2010, it would take another year before the case against her mother was thrown out
She eventually decided to put her plans to study English literature and philosophy at Edinburgh University on hold to sign with local record company GSound.
‘GSound didn’t promise me the world and didn’t care about the controversy, they wanted to know what I could do musically,’ she says.
Unlike many X Factor pop puppets, Gamu insisted on writing her own music. ‘It was very important to me that I wasn’t going to go into the studio and sing someone else’s song. I had enough to sing about after what I’d been through and, besides, I’d been writing songs since I was four. It was quite therapeutic because I got to get a lot off my chest.’
Her 1960s Motown-inspired debut single Shake The Room, which references inspirations such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown in the lyrics, shows how important it is to her that she’s distanced from the X Factor sausage factory.
‘I’ve taken so much time out, I’m with a small label and I’ve written my own songs. That gives me more credibility. The songs are very different from the covers I was singing on the show,’ she says.
She has found love, too, with 24-year-old blues guitarist Jamie Rintoul, with whom she has been writing songs.
‘He’s really supportive and it’s great to have another musician to feed off. He’s one of my best friends and an important part of my life,’ she says.
But she has no plans to flee the nest just yet. ‘My mum doesn’t want me to move out till I’m 30,’ she giggles.
Gamu’s mother always openly discouraged her pop star ambitions.
‘I’ve wanted to be a singer since I was a kid but Mum always told me because I was a smart girl I needed to go to uni.’ When Gamu wanted to sing in pubs as a teenager, her mum forbade her, saying: ‘No respectable woman does that.’
Before she auditioned for The X Factor, most of her music experience had come from singing in church choirs.
And I wonder if, in hindsight, Gamu regrets auditioning for X Factor herself. ‘Not at all,’ she responds quickly. ‘It’s just going to make a great chapter in the biography — the experience has made me a much stronger, compassionate person.
‘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’s single, Shake the Room, is released on May 6
Listen to the single here...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2314923/X-Factors-Gamus--doesnt-need-Simon-Cowell.html#ixzz2RcIkW51x
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