Cabello basically had to fight tooth and nail to get in front of “The X Factor”‘s Season 2 celebrity judges, Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato, Britney Spears, and L.A. Reid. In case you didn’t know, there’s at least one round of auditions before contestants get in front of the famous faces, and Cabello recalled on “Women of the Hour” in 2017 that she made it through that stage, but only as an alternate.
“For two days, I was right about to go audition and they would tell me, ‘Oh no. You can’t audition,'” Cabello — who convinced her mom to drive her to the auditions instead of having a quinceañera — shared. “I had my whole family there, and they were like, ‘We don’t want to keep having you get disappointed. You might as well just go home.'” But, thankfully, the then teenager didn’t give up. “I was like, ‘No, just give me a shot.’ I ended up auditioning because they saw how badly I wanted it and how persistent I was — it’s a Cuban thing. And so I got to audition.”
Cowell also dished on what happened on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” in 2021, recalling, “I went backstage to have a cigarette. [Cabello] was laying on the floor crying. I went, ‘What’s the matter?’ She said, ‘They won’t let me audition.’ I went, ‘Well, just go out and audition.’ She came out five minutes later — amazing.”
Nicki
