14 DAY TRIAL // Gamu Nhengu has come to regret ever auditioning for X Factor. The 18-year-old singer says she and her family are now facing deportation because of the attention she got on the show – and they may be shot if they return to native Zimbabwe.
Gamu came to the attention of the public after her audition for X Factor was aired on TV and she was accepted through to the bootcamp stage.
At the judges’ house audition, Gamu’s stay on the show came to an end after Cheryl Cole decided she did not want to keep her – a decision she says she stands by.
However, Gamu’s elimination attracted a lot of media and public attention, which, she says, has worsened her situation in the UK: so, shortly after, she and her family were told they couldn’t remain in the UK and had only a few days to go back to Zimbabwe.
Speaking with the media for the first time since this blew up, Gamu is now saying going back home is not an option for her or her family since they will all be shot and killed, the Herald Scotland informs.
“I’ve been in the public eye now and people there know I’ve fled [Robert] Mugabe’s regime. They will punish us if we go back. They’re going to know where we are,” Gamu said the other day.
“We’re going to be very unsafe. People have been approaching our family members,” she added, speaking from her hotel room in Perthshire.
“We think they could be working for Mugabe. And we know how brutal he can be. I would be in danger, it’s blatantly obvious. My family would be in danger,” the singer further said.
Moreover, Nhengu believes she wouldn’t be in this situation if she hadn’t audition for X Factor, concluding that the show literally ruined her life by bringing her in the spotlight.
“The show has ruined my life. If I hadn’t been on X Factor everything would have been fine,” she reportedly said in another interview over the weekend, as per the Daily Mail.
So far, 10,000 people have put their name on a petition asking the Home Office to overturn the initial decision of not extending the visa for Gamu and her family.
Even Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop has taken an interest in her case, writing an open letter to Home Secretary Theresa May in which she pleads in her favor because of her singing talent.