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By Joe Stone
As the host of X Factor, Dermot O’Leary holds the reigns on Britain’s most talked about show. So why did he consider turning it down?
The Dermot O’Leary I meet in east London’s Shoreditch House is exactly the same Dermot I watched present the X factor less than an hour before. This is partly because he is still dressed in the same slim fit navy suit, and partly because his manner in person is exactly the same as it is on screen. He is impossibly enthusiastic - having come straight from presenting nearly two-and-a-half hours of prime-time live television. Here is the archetypal nice guy, with a universal appeal that unites his hoards of female fans with, well, just about everyone else.
We are here to talk about the X Factor. Now in its fifth series, this is the second which Dermot has fronted since Kate Thornton was unceremoniously fired from her job as host (she allegedly discovered that she was being replaced by reading press reports). In terms of success, the show is in a league of its own, with a mass appeal that harkens back to the golden era of Saturday night entertainment. It is the Holy Grail of presenting jobs, but Dermot was initially reluctant to do it. ‘I was a little bit worried about… I guess I was a little bit scared to be honest.’ He explains. ‘I guess when you do Little Brother you almost get, not lazy and not complacent, but just get into a little bit of a security bubble. And to go from that to a big show like X Factor is a massive step up, so a part of you just says ‘eek’ to yourself. But of course you can’t turn it down, it’s the biggest show on tele and I love it and it’s a crazy show to be on. I had a few questions to ask myself I suppose, and when I could answer those, it was fine.’
I wonder if perhaps part of his concern was with the allegedly exploitative element of the show, where auditions are granted to only the very best or very worst participants, the range of which extends from the endearingly misguided to the arguably unwell. ‘Oh no, I didn’t think about that. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a contract. When you put yourself up, and say that you have something that you want to showcase, then you enter into it and agree that that is going to be shown. You have these people that come in who are the most strange, wonderful people you’ve ever seen. They might have five minutes where they are part of the X Factor, and my job is to make those five minutes the best of their life.’
This may appear in print to be a very grand claim, but to me it seems entirely possible that he is capable of doing so. There is something very charming about Dermot, and not in any contrived way. It is clear that he is very good at his job, and this seems to come largely from his ability to expertly gauge his response to difficult contestants while remaining entirely genuine in his engagement with them. He is immediately likeable, gesticulating wildly throughout our conversation and peppering his answers with ‘do-you-know-what-I-mean’s and follow up questions.
 This last series of X Factor seems to been on a bigger scale than those that have gone before. Perhaps the huge international success of Leona Lewis has raised the bar in terms of what contestants can hope to achieve, and no doubt the introduction of Cheryl Cole as a judge has spurred interest as well, but Dermot has his own ideas about what has made this series such a talking point. ‘Talent makes the show, and this year the final twelve were brilliant.’ It was a final twelve which has included a pretty diverse range of hopefuls, from reformed cocaine addict Rachel Hylton to the bewitchingly fragile17-year-old Diana Vickers. Is it hard to be an objective host? ‘Obviously, and I’m on shaky ground here, I have favourites. But the great thing about this year is that all of the final twelve are relatively nice people. I spend the most time with people I like the best, and I kind of know that on the door in the first stages. It’s lucky that a lot of people I really liked have made it through to the final twelve.’ I ask him if he struggles to commiserate with a contestant that isn’t a favourite, or who he feels deserves to leave the competition. ‘With someone like Daniel, he understood that it was his time to go. He’s a good guy and his life will definitely change for the better after the show. He was working as a pool cleaner, and now he’ll do the tour, and then see what happens.’
It was also a year dogged with controversy. Early on in the competition 23-year-old Alex Turner was accused of fabricating his all-important back story (he allegedly faked his claim to have been fostered), and the role that sob stories have played in the contestants ‘journeys’ has continued to be a contentious point among viewers. The alleged bullying of judge Danni Minogue was discussed in Parliament, as was the Laura White controversy - which saw 50,000 people sign a petition to have the early favourite reinstated into the competition after she was unexpectedly booted off in week five. Dermot is instantly dismissive about rumours of vote fixing. ‘People need to understand that it is a public vote, and that if they don’t vote for their favourite then they will end up in the bottom two. It’s as simple as that’ he pauses and then can’t help but add mischievously, ‘that said, the fact that the whole nation talks about it is brilliant!’
Dermot began his career as a television researcher, before going on to establish T4 on channel 4. Pre the X Factor he was a DJ on XFM (he now hosts an award winning show on Radio 2) and his presenting credits included BBC1 quiz show 1 v 100, three series of SAS Are You Tough Enough? and seven series of Big Brothers Little Brother. ‘On Little Brother I was a producer, so with X Factor it was important that I could still have a similar input. I go in on a Wednesday, and I write my own script with the writers, and I’ve got a really good producer who started at the same time as me, and we’re very much a team - but at the same time this was still a massive step from anything which I’d done before.’
I ask how he has managed to stay so grounded while many of his contemporaries have come unstuck.‘ It’s just important to not make it a bigger thing than it is. It’s good for me that it’s built up quite gradually, I started T4 in 1998, and when I began on TV it was because I wanted to go into broadcasting. I didn’t presume that I was, kind of, worthy of being in front of the camera.’ This seems like a strange admission from one of the country’s most loved presenters, and perhaps encapsulates part of the reason behind his popularity. He is at once completely comfortable on our screens, without for one second presuming that he has an unshakable right to be there.
As the host of Britain’s most talked about show, I wonder what could be next for Dermot. "A month before X Factor, if you’d have asked me, I’d have had no idea that I’d be doing this, so it’s hard to predict what’s around the corner. I’m definitely up for doing it for a few more years... I’ve still got the radio show, which I love doing, and I want to travel at some point. For the moment though, I’m perfectly happy where I am. I love this gig!"
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