Wembley certainly wasn’t. It was also not entirely clear whether patrons of The Courtyard pub in Morpeth had any idea of the identity of the grey-bearded singer who entertained them on a Sunday night last month.
But for all the disparity between this intimate gig and his past box office success, Steve Brookstein, the first winner of The X Factor, tells me that, despite many years of torment and depression, he couldn’t be happier.
‘I have found peace now. God’s plans and all that. Sometimes you have to accept that the bad guys win.
It soon becomes clear that the bad guy in Steve’s narrative is none other than Simon Cowell.
Because while next week it will be 20 years since Brookstein, now 56, won the reality show (landing a £1m record deal in front of ten million ITV viewers), it is clear that the experience of finding the fame through Cowell is one that affected him deeply.
He tells me that he has only now overcome the trauma of being humiliated on screen by X Factor judges Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh, who branded him a “phony” and a “pub singer”, and then branded him a national loser afterwards. of Cowell brutally abandoning him. record label in one year.
Presenter Kate Thornton and Simon Cowell as Steve is announced winner of The X Factor in 2004.
‘I have made peace with all of this. The only thing that was difficult for me and that I had to do was forgive. But for years I couldn’t forgive.
‘The X Factor gave me everything I didn’t want: humiliation. It’s been like an albatross around my neck.
However, when the ticker tape fell on the stage as Brookstein was declared the winner of the show, his first feelings were euphoria. ‘In my head, I said to myself, ‘Nothing can go wrong now.’
How wrong I was. Brookstein’s experiences may be decades old, but his words have taken on resonance today given the tragic death of troubled One Direction star Liam Payne at age 31. Payne was just 14 when she first came to public attention on The X Factor, four years after Brookstein.
“My heart went out to his family,” he says. ‘I was lucky because I was older. He was 36 years old, he had life experience.
‘If I had been on X Factor at his age, I could easily have seen myself following the same path as him.
‘I have spoken about my own battles with my mental health. I’ve been to those dark places. It is a tragic set of circumstances.
While in that glittering final six million people voted for Brookstein to beat opera group G4, just seven months later he was desperate to get out of his contract with Cowell, feeling he was being mismanaged by the music mogul.
He has said that he attended an industry party after the release of his first album in May 2005 and talked to Cowell, who was also there.
Steve and his now wife Eileen at an event in 2005. Winning The X Factor earned Steve a record £1 million contract in front of ten million ITV viewers.
Steve, 56, with silver hair and glasses, who now sings in local coffee shops.
“He (Cowell) said, ‘You’re very lucky you didn’t get on (the show) this year; the standard is so much better.’ Last year it was kind of a joke. It was unnecessary. I’d just had a number one album.
Not long after, Cowell shoved Brookstein before he could jump, brutally announcing on television that he “couldn’t sell records.”
The public humiliation that followed was swift. Mocked online, almost all the industry’s doors were slammed shut, such was Cowell’s influence.
Brookstein was offered just £12,500 in compensation for the lost £1m deal, in exchange for signing a confidentiality agreement.
Enraged, he refused and left with nothing. Since then, commercial success has eluded him, hence the small gig in Morpeth. But he still managed to make a living through music.
In fact, on December 11, the actual date of the anniversary, Brookstein – who is happily married to his wife of 18 years, jazz singer Eileen Hunter, and has two teenage children – will sing in a west London cafe.
The public, he says, is complimentary.
“People are still quite surprised that I can sing,” he says. ‘I’m not blind to the fact that the weather hasn’t been kind to me, probably due to stress. I’m losing my hair and I’m overweight, which doesn’t look good.
“I know people look at me and say, ‘Oh God, he’s changed, he used to be so fit.'” I have gone from weighing 11 kilos to 16 kilos, I wear glasses and I have a gray beard. But I’m enjoying it (acting).’
His current contentment certainly contrasts with his X Factor experience, as he reflects today: “I was doing well before The X Factor. I had supported Dionne Warwick at The Fairfield Halls in Croydon just before my first audition and had been offered a gig opening act for Lionel Richie on December 11, 2004, which happened to be the night of the final, so I had to turn him down. He could have been a supporting act for Lionel Richie. I think about that a lot. because it’s my sliding door moment.
Steve pictured performing at a local Caffe Nero in Birmingham alongside his wife Eileen.
Steve is now happily married to jazz singer Eileen and has two teenage children.
‘My father and wife had seen the advertisement for this new talent show. I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet new people in the industry.
Instead, the process hurt him. He has said Sharon Osbourne called him the C-word during rehearsals, while Louis Walsh even said he looked like serial killer Fred West on live TV. “It was pretty shocking,” Brookstein says. “There was a lot of hatred towards me.
‘The hardest thing was when I was harassed online. People were sending me emails and website links and there were all these photos of me with Fred West. It was all in the (online) chat rooms. And you’re not prepared for that in real life. The worst thing that happened to you was going back to school, and this was a national thing.
“I never wanted to take my life, but I felt that if I didn’t have Eileen and the children, I could have it.” Brookstein is unequivocal: his treatment on the show showed a callous disregard for him as a person.
‘There was no duty of care (on the part of the employers). “What they learned from the first series was not how to take care of the artists, but how to protect the company,” he says.
‘(After the first series) everyone had to sign confidentiality agreements straight away, they were much more controlled than in the first series. We were just material for the show. Three weeks after the final, Steve went to number one with ‘Against all Odds’, a cover of a Phil Collins song. However, he was already so disillusioned that he admits he felt no joy when his manager Tim Byrne – who also helped create One Direction – called him to break the news.
‘He told me to remember the moment, but I never wanted to release the song. I couldn’t celebrate.
‘On The X Factor it was very competitive, everyone was climbing over bodies to get to the top, that’s how I felt. “All the contestants were great, it was just the feel of the show, it was a lot about the ratings.”
In July 2005, he approached Cowell to try to get out of his contract: “I had seen contracts and I had also been aware of what happens when contracts go wrong.” The record label always has the power.
—You can also sign it and hope they don’t screw you, but they screwed me.
‘They told me they were going to take their time with my album, but then they threw out a covers album. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was absolutely furious.
“I was asking to leave the label and then Simon decided to go on TV and said he was going to leave me. I didn’t know how vindictive they were. I just said, look, give me £50,000 so I can leave and start my own business.
‘They said no, we’ll offer you £12,500. For a million pound record deal? How does that work?
‘They wanted me to sign a confidentiality agreement, but I said no. It’s not about getting scammed and all the money, but about the humiliation afterwards.
“A few months later, I did a couple of gigs, one in Monaco at the Grand Prix, it was on (driver) Kimi Raikkonen’s yacht, all the big stars were there, Nigel Mansell, Eddie Jordan, it was a proper gig.
And then the following week my agent asked me to do a gig at his friend’s pub in Cornwall as a favour. I was happy to do it and they looked after me.’
He added: ‘But then an article appeared making fun of my appearance in the pub. This continued for days. A newspaper put my head on a farmer’s body and said Tractor
‘All the good work, all the jobs, I had many that were canceled after that. They just destroy you.’
What would you say to Cowell if you saw him today?
‘I wouldn’t have anything to say to him. I just wish he would apologize. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, an apology, but I’ll never get it.
Today, he admits that he often thinks about what his life would have been like if he hadn’t been on The X Factor.
“I think I would be in a better place. I have no doubt: I would be a better singer now, I would be in better shape and I wouldn’t suffer from depression.
“I’m not going to say it ruined me, but it damaged my credibility because I had a lot of good things going for me before The X Factor. But I can’t regret it, because it is what it is. All the tears I shed were for my wife and my family. It was never about me.’
She will soon release her cover of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Don’t Give Up’ following the death of her beloved father Errol this year: ‘I just want to move on. The only way I’ve gotten through this is by being grateful for small mercies.’
Get tickets to Steve’s upcoming acoustic show in London at: www.stevebrookstein.com