Interview: X Factor's Lucy Spraggan

Her name is Lucy Spraggan. She sings and plays guitar and writes funny, personal songs. She has 67, 368 Facebook friends and 173,289 Twitter followers. Check again in a month's time and those numbers may well have doubled.

Ever since that first audition back in August, openly gay X Factor contestant Lucy Spraggan has had us more hooked on the talent show than Sue Perkins got us crazy for cake. Weekend after weekend she has entertained us with her witty songs and here at DIVA we're happy to support the girl who we featured in our Four to Adore section just under a year ago.

I ring her up on a Friday morning in September, a week before the X Factor live shows are about to begin, and with a well-deserved weekend off in front of her, the otherwise extremely busy Lucy sounds relaxed.

Her life today is somewhat different to when we first met face-to-face, five months ago. Selling baby photos in the streets of Sheffield, she was spending her paycheck on petrol as she toured the country on her own.

Going on The X Factor hadn't even crossed her mind until a friend suggested she bring a guitar and play her own songs at the auditions earlier this year.

"I thought, there's an opportunity there that I can't miss. But I didn't think that I'd end up being here now," she says.

Is The X Factor as big a circus as we imagine?

"The X Factor is solid hard work. When you watch it, you see people breaking down… it almost makes you want to punch the TV, but when you're actually going through that experience and the emotional drainage that is happening… you don't know what you're doing."

Guiding her through it is mentor Tulisa Contostavlos and Lucy wouldn't have preferred anyone else to do it, not even Cheryl Cole.

Read the rest of our interview with Lucy in the November issue, on sale from October 25, 2012.