14 DAY TRIAL // Scandal almost cost an X Factor hopeful her chances on the show, as word broke that Chloe Victoria was also known as Chloe Mafia, an escort who used her time on the show to sell herself at higher rates.
As we also informed you yesterday, Chloe made it through the first auditions with the judges, even though she didn’t exactly steal the show with her performance.
After winning a vote of confidence from Simon Cowell and Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, Chloe went through to boot camp – but singing may not have been her real motivation, reports suggested.
To put it bluntly, Chloe, a 19-year-old mother of one, worked as an escort before she came to audition for the show – and then used her newfound fame to increase her regular rates.
Faced with outrage from the public and calls to have her out of the show this instant, X Factor producers are standing their ground, saying there’s no way they’ll let her go only on account of her career choice, the Daily Mail writes.
“We haven’t banned [escorts]. If a person applies to the X Factor it’s obvious they want to do something better with their life,” Simon Cowell says.
Since he’s Chloe’s biggest supporter at the judges’ table and given earlier rumors that he was positively fuming over allegations she was using her time on the show to boost her profile, it’s safe to say that she’s out of the woods for the time being.
“We’re not doing anything. The editing process will continue and she may appear again – but that will be an editing choice, nothing to do with her alleged career choice,” a statement from the producers of the show also says.
“She will be treated as everyone else is,” the same statement says, adding that, as far as they knew, Chloe was denying all the allegations brought against her.
As several British groups are clamoring up, saying having her on the show glamorizes an industry that doesn’t need more glamorizing, and that she should be in counseling and not paraded on TV, details on her troubled past continue to emerge.
“It has also emerged though that Miss Heald racked up an appalling catalogue of crimes as a child – being arrested an astonishing 140 times,” the Mail says.
“Aged around 13, she and [boyfriend] Hough were almost killed on their first date when a stolen car they were in crashed at 110mph,” the same publication informs.
Of course, she hid her troubled past from the producers.