Stacey Solomon

Solomon was born in Dagenham. Her father is from a Jewish family that had emigrated to Britain from Iraq and Poland. Her mother was born into a Church of England family (the daughter of a vicar), and had converted to Judaism before marrying Stacey's father.[4][5] Her parents divorced when she was nine.[4] She attended King Solomon High School.

In 2009, Solomon auditioned for the sixth series of The X Factor, performing "What a Wonderful World". Solomon was among the top 12 contestants and advanced to the live shows and was mentored by Dannii Minogue. During the first week of the live shows she performed Coldplay's "The Scientist", which gained positive reviews from the judges. During week two, she performed "At Last", receiving the most public votes. She sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" during the third week. On the fourth week, all contestants had to sing rock songs; Minogue selected "Somewhere Only We Know", and Solomon's performance resulted in positive reviews. On the fifth week, she sang "Son of a Preacher Man". The sixth week into the competition, Solomon sang Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever". During the sixth week, she also released a cover of Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone", which topped the charts on the UK Singles Chart and the Irish Singles Chart[6] On the seventh week, she performed "I Can't Make You Love Me" and again received positive reviews from the judges and the audience. In the quarter-final, Solomon performed "Rule the World" by Take That and "Something About the Way You Look Tonight" by Elton John. In the semi-final she performed another Michael Jackson song, "The Way You Make Me Feel", and the song "Somewhere" for which she received a standing ovation again by the judges. During the final week, Solomon performed a duet "Feeling Good" with Michael Bublé. She also performed "What a Wonderful World" and "Who Wants to Live Forever". Solomon was awarded third place in the competition, behind Joe McElderry and Olly Murs.[7]

Solomon went on tour with her fellow X Factor finalists. In December 2010, she returned to the show, where she presented the show from Essex for winner, Matt Cardle.[8]

In June 2011, Solomon began working on her debut album, due to be released in 2012. Her first single from the album was originally to be released in February, but was delayed. On 5 November 2011, Solomon performed to thousands as the headline act at Paisley's Christmas Lights Switch On event.[9] In September 2011, it was reported that Solomon was in a bidding war between record labels. However, she stated that she will have complete control. She was also asked to join The Only Way Is Essex, but turned it down.[10]

On 18 December 2011, Solomon released a cover of Chris Rea's "Driving Home for Christmas" as her Christmas single. The single was used for the Iceland Christmas commercial and reached number 27 in the UK Singles Chart.[3] In June 2012, she said she recorded a number of singles with an album planned in September 2012, but later moved that release date to February 2013, and then to November 2013.

On 29 November 2013, Solomon was announced as the headline artist to lead a choir of over 110,000 primary school children. She joined the Young Voices tour, which took place from 14 January to 5 February 2014 in Birmingham, Sheffield, London and Manchester.[11] The singer performed tracks from her forthcoming debut album on the tour, scheduled for release in 2014. Her debut album "Shy" was released in April 2015 along with the title track "Shy". In 2016, she released her second single from the album, "My Big Mistake".[12]

Solomon returned to the fourteenth series of The X Factor UK on Saturday 2 December 2017 and Sunday 3 December 2017, where she co-presented alongside George Shelley where she interviewed the fourteenth series finalists parents, families, relatives and friends at the live finals from ExCeL London on things such as how they feel about their finalist who is competing in the competition and wishing their finalist who is competing 'good luck'. The interview is to give the audience a sense of what kind of support the finalists have behind them. Solomon and Shelley were co-presenters for this purpose of interviewing only, the main presenter is Dermot O'Leary. She returned again in the same position, the following year.

Solomon has had multiple fashion collaborations with Irish Fast Fashion brand, Primark including a children’s range which she marketed with her own children. She recently has paired up with Amazon in 2020.