And if he has had them syringed, according to Charlotte Church, he definitely needed to. She was quoted recently as saying “Is Louis Walsh deaf? He keeps putting people through who are dreadful.” And according to The Sun, Louis recently visited a clinic in Dublin to get them syringed and get his hearing “back to normal.” When questioned about the procedure in The Sun, Louis apparently said “I don’t know if it’s to do with the singing I’ve had to put up with at The X Factor auditions. It was just a minor thing but it makes a difference in my job.”

Perhaps if he’d had them syringed at the start of the auditions, certain ’singers’ wouldn’t have made it through to boot camp.

Dwindled down from 75,000 to just 200. After the final auditions had come to a close, Simon, Louis and Sharon were held captive in a room on their own and at the mercy of The X Factor producers, about to have their fate decided. Which category would be assigned to which judge?

Louis was the first to be called in by the directors to learn his fate. As revealed by The Mirror earlier last week, Louis was given the under 25’s to mentor. On hearing the news, Louis couldn’t have been happier, exclaiming “Oh great, that’s the category I wanted. Wow! Good.”

Sharon was called in next by the directors and to her relief, she found out that she would be mentoring the over 25’s. Sharon admitted that the thought of getting the groups filled her with dread and had said previously that if she did get them, she would be “very upset”. Earlier the judges admitted that they would all like to mentor the under 25’s because there is so much talent there.

An increasingly impatient Simon was left to sweat for the longest, all on his own exclaiming grumpily “I hate been made to wait”. On finally being called in by the producer and hearing that he is to mentor the groups, Simon looked exceedingly unhappy and told the producer “It’s the wrong decision in my mind, I could have done something with the under 25’s”. However, Simon still managed to congratulate Sharon and Louis (albeit through gritted teeth) who were jumping up and down with joy. According to Louis, Simon is not pleased at having to manage the groups and is “absolutely furious, but pretending to be happy”. We think it’s the most worried we have ever seen Simon look….

It’s the very last week of auditions before we head into boot camp! Which categories will the judges be assigned?
Featuring auditions from London and Mancehster, and with a ’special’ apperance from Jack Osbourne, all will be revealed in this week’s episodes of The X Factor and The Xtra Factor:

Saturday 24th September:

19:05 - 20:05 The X Factor (ITV1)
20:05 - 21:10 The Xtra Factor (ITV2)

And then the repeats:

Sunday 25th September:

00:15 - 01:15 The X Factor (ITV2)
01:15 - 02:20 The Xtra Factor (ITV2)
10:55 - 11:55 The X Factor (ITV1)
11:55 - 12:55 The Xtra Factor (ITV2)
20:20 - 21:20 The X Factor (ITV2)
21:20 - 22:20 The Xtra Factor (ITV2)

Get ready for the next episode of The X Factor at 7:05pm on Saturday. Also, don’t miss Xtra Factor, it’s where Jack Osbourne disguises himself as a rapper and goes in to audition infront of the judges (obviously his Mum is in on the joke too). It’s an absolute must-see.

Also, in X Factor the judges get to find out which category they will mentor. Louis looks like the cat who got the cream, saying ” I’m shell-shocked, I didn’t expect it”, so obviously, he thinks that he’s struck lucky and has the best raw material to work with. Sharon is “really, really excited” and Simon’s looking worried, saying “It’s the worst possible scenario”. Here we think that it’s not really about which category they have, but more about what they do with it. Whatever happens, I’m sure we can bank on some ever increasing judge rivalry.