‘The X Factor’ UK winner Matt Terry was rejected from show the prior year

How about this as a twist we didn’t see coming for “The X Factor” UK? Matt Terry was the winner of the most-recent season, but at the same exact time, it turns out that this was not the first time he tried out — and the first time he did, he didn’t even make it past the audition phase of the competition.

Speaking in a new interview with BANG! Showbiz (Per The List), Terry had the following to say about why things did not work out anywhere near as well for him the first time around:

“It was the second time I auditioned for the ‘X Factor’ … I auditioned the year before but I was really ill and didn’t do very well. I didn’t sing that great. I was kicked out in the producer round where you sit in front of people from the show.”

Matt also wished runner-up Saara Aalto well, and felt as though she would be able to have a very successful career after the show — which we certainly believe will be true. She’s got a good chance to have hit singles in the UK, and we have a lot of confidence that she will be extremely popular moving forward in her home country of Finland.

The story of Matt as a repeat contestant is not unusual. Many winners of singing shows these days have tried out multiple times; we’ve had winners of “American Idol” before who tried out on several occasions and didn’t get nearly as far. The fact that Matt won this season and didn’t even get to the judges the first time around proves the variance that can happen if you show up on a given day and have a bad performance. The lack of these over the course of the season is one of the reasons why Matt won.

We’ll see what the future holds for Matt; for now, let us know in the comments if you think repeat contestants will be a thing that dominates future seasons.

Also, be sure to check out some (surprising) news regarding Honey G! (Photo: ITV.)