Alexandra Burke

Proving the familiar saying that persistence eventually pays off, soul singer Alexandra Burke claimed victory in the fifth season of The X-Factor three years after an earlier rejection by the same program. Born in Islington, London in 1988 as the daughter of ex-Soul II Soul vocalist Melissa Bell, she started singing while still very young. At age 12 she competed on the BBC talent show Star for a Night yet finished second to a then-unknown Joss Stone. Once she left school, Burke focused on building a music career by performing regularly in clubs and joining Young Voices, a choir that raised funds for children with leukemia. She auditioned again for the second series of The X-Factor in 2005 and advanced to the final seven in her category before narrowly failing to secure a spot among mentor Louis Walsh’s top three. Returning for the 2008 series, she impressed new judge Cheryl Cole sufficiently to earn a place in the live shows.

From the start she ranked among the strongest contestants, avoiding the bottom two entirely and emerging as the clear favorite after several surprise eliminations. A standout duet with Beyoncé and a soulful take on the Leonard Cohen classic “Hallelujah” helped her defeat fellow finalists JLS and Eoghan Quigg, securing 58 percent of the vote and making her the show’s second female winner. Released as her debut single, “Hallelujah” reached the Christmas number one spot just one week later, moving 576,000 copies in its first seven days and establishing a record for the fastest-selling single by a solo female artist. Her debut album Overcome arrived in the U.K. the following October, with lead single “Bad Boys” featuring Flo Rida ascending to the top of the national singles chart. Burke reappeared in 2012 with her sophomore album Heartbreak on Hold, which included the single “Elephant,” and followed it in December with her first holiday project, the Christmas Gift EP.

Over the ensuing year she kept developing fresh material, first issuing the digital-only #NewRules EP and then taking the lead role in the West End staging of The Bodyguard. Although that London run concluded, the production embarked on a U.K. tour that lasted two more years, with Burke continuing as Rachel Marron. A cast recording highlighting her vocals appeared in 2015. She next assumed the lead part of Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act: The Musical, which toured Britain until 2017. Later the same year she joined the BBC dance competition Strictly Come Dancing and ultimately shared second place. While her recording output had slowed, she returned to the studio for her third album, The Truth Is, a deeply personal set that she co-wrote and that surfaced at the start of 2018.