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Former X Factor star Chris Leonard has opened up about his experience on the show and the double-edged sword after finding himself in the live finals with his bandmates

A former X Factor finalist has revealed the heartbreaking reality of his time on the programme. Chris Leonard, who found himself thrust into the live shows as one eighth of the manufactured band Stereo Kicks, had initially auditioned as a solo artist.

Chris and his bandmates instantly became a hit with fans but finished the programme in fifth place during series 11, which Ben Haenow went on to win.

But Chris, 30, admits that while he loved the experience the show gave him and helped further his career, he admits his time on the show was a “mixture” of feelings. 11 years on from Stereo Kicks splitting in 2015, the County Meath-born singer is now touring across the world with his traditional Irish band, Shillelagh Law. Speaking about his time on the show, which saw Louis Walsh act as their mentor, Chris told the Mirror: “The show was a real mixture.

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“One thing that many people don’t realise is, I developed an eating disorder after the show. I got so sucked into the image side of things, I think my image was always in question within the band.

“It was between shaving my head and not being allowed to be myself. People always questioned my image, which was because what was being put out there wasn’t who I was. There was none of my personality. I think that affected me because I had a feeling or an expectation of people expecting me to live up to it.

“There were difficult parts on the show as a result, but there were also the normal sides. If it wasn’t for X Factor, I wouldn’t get to do the things I’m doing today, get to play with the people that I’ve played with, or have the experiences I’ve had. I’m very grateful.” But if he could turn back time, would he do it again? Absolutely, he would just be a braver 19-year-old from Ireland and stand up for himself more.

However, one of his all-time highlights in his music career happened on X Factor, sharing the stage with Queen legend, Sir Brian May. “As a musician and a guitar player, to see Brian May was just insane. It was absolutely wild,” Chris gushed.

One fond memory he has, sitting in Louis Walsh’s dressing room with JLS members, Marvin, Aston and JB. He revealed: “We were having a couple of drinks and they turned around and said ‘Chris, just be prepared, when this is over, when the X Factor bubble pops, it’s done, the phone stops ringing – it’s down to your management to keep that buzz after.’

“If it wasn’t for them saying that to me, I wouldn’t have been as prepared. I’m so grateful for that.” While Chris was young at 19, his bandmate Reece was just 16, and Charlie was 15. Now, he hopes that TV shows have measures in place to help contestants with their mental health and navigate their newfound profile. He said: “I haven’t been on that side of everything in a long time, but I’d like to think these networks and companies that do talent shows have now put the correct measures in place and do look after contestants’ mental health.”

And following the rise of December 10, created by Simon Cowell on his new Netflix show, Chris encouraged the band to “stay humble” and realise that, despite being on a TV show or in a band, they’re still young men trying to make music. “You have to work harder,” he said, adding: “Keep your ego in check and be kind to people, don’t think you’re above anybody.”

While he may have been on arguably the biggest show on TV, Chris never for a second thought of himself as famous. Instead, he was just a young lad from Ireland chasing his dream. “Egos can kick in, and work ethic can slip,” he said of people who get above themselves.

He said of December 10: “My advice would be keep your feet on the ground, focus on the music that you’re doing, make sure you’ve got two or three good people around you that you can confide in that actually have your best interests at heart and just be a good person.”

If you’re worried about your health or the health of somebody else, you can contact SEED eating disorder support service on 01482 718130 or on their website, here.

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WASHINGTON — The White House said it was not feasible to save the East Wing because of structural and other concerns as officials shared details of President Trump’s planned ballroom at Thursday’s meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission.

Josh Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, ticked off issues including an unstable colonnade, water leakage and mold contamination in explaining why it was more economical to tear down the East Wing to make room for the $400-million ballroom than to renovate it.

“Because of this and other factors, the cost analysis proved that demolition and reconstruction provided the lowest total cost ownership and most effective long-term strategy,” Fisher said.

Will Scharf, a top White House aide whom Trump tapped to head the commission, opened the meeting by noting “passionate comments on both sides” of the ballroom project but adding that public comment wouldn’t be part of Thursday’s session.

“I view today’s presentation really as the start of a process as the ballroom moves through the overall NCPC process,” Scharf said, adding that his objective is for the commission to play a “productive role” as ballroom construction moves ahead.

In December, the White House submitted its ballroom plans to the commission, which is one of two federal panels that review construction on federal land — usually before ground is broken. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to halt construction, accusing the Trump administration of violating federal laws by proceeding before submitting the project for the independent reviews, congressional approval and public comment.

The first step in the review process for the East Wing Modernization Project was Thursday’s information presentation, during which commissioners could ask questions and offer general feedback. A more formal review is expected in the spring — including public testimony and votes.

A summary on the commission’s website said the purpose of the project is to “establish a permanent, secure event space within the White House grounds” that provides increased capacity for official state functions, eliminates reliance on temporary tents and support facilities, and “protects the historic integrity and cultural landscape of the White House and its grounds.”

A comprehensive design plan for the White House prepared in 2000 identified the “need for expanded event space to address growing visitor demand and provide a venue suitable for significant events,” the summary said. It added that successive administrations had “recognized this need as an ongoing priority.”

The 12-member National Capital Planning Commission is led by Scharf. He said at the commission’s December meeting that the review process would be treated seriously and be conducted at a “normal and deliberative pace.”

Carol Quillen, president of the trust, told the Associated Press in a recent interview that she takes Scharf “at his word” that the commission will do its job.

Trump, a Republican serving his second term, has been talking about building a White House ballroom for years. In July, the White House announced a 90,000-square-foot space would be built on the east side of the complex to accommodate 650 seated guests at a then-estimated cost of $200 million. Trump has said it will be paid for with private donations, including from him.

He later upped the ballroom’s capacity to 999 people and, by October, had demolished the two-story East Wing. In December, he updated the price tag to $400 million.

The White House has announced few other details about the project but has said it would be completed before Trump’s term ends in January 2029. Trump has said the ballroom will be big enough for future presidential inaugurations to be held there. He also said it will have bulletproof glass and a drone-free roof.

While in Florida last week, the president bought marble and onyx for the ballroom “at his own expense,” the White House said. The cost was not disclosed.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid his fifth visit to the United States since President Donald Trump took office in January. Before the meeting between the two, the Israeli press described the prime minister as fully engaged in an attempt to placate his domestic political partners by achieving “concessions” from Trump. What were these concessions? They were predominantly related to denying Turkiye any presence in the Gaza stabilisation force and to US approval for an Israeli strike on Iran.

Netanyahu failed on both counts. Trump specifically referred to his good relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and spoke of “Bibi’s” respect for him, too. With regard to Iran, Trump mentioned Iran’s willingness to “make a deal” and provided clear guidelines for American involvement while saying nothing about authorising a solo Israeli operation. Israeli media suggests that Trump provided Israel with a “green light” for a strike on Iran. That is not reflected in Trump’s official statement in any way.

Trump talked about the reconstruction of Gaza beginning “soon”. When he spoke of the disarmament of Hamas, he said that it must happen or nearly 60 states will make it happen. Hamas has already agreed to disarm if the process is carried out by a Palestinian-led force. Trump said nothing to suggest that he does not agree with Hamas’s logic, especially when one considers the refusal of most participating countries to carry out a violent disarmament of the group. Trump also made no mention of the last hostage body held in Gaza as a necessary condition for moving to “Stage II” of the deal.

Nothing is more significant in Trump’s world than the use of language and symbolic gestures. When Trump referred to Netanyahu as a “great wartime prime minister” as he was discussing his blueprint for “peace”, he made it clear that his guest was running out of time. This was also clearly apparent when Trump said he had spoken with Israel’s official head of state, President Isaac Herzog, about a pardon for Netanyahu and was assured such a pardon was imminent. President Herzog, by the way, categorically denied that such a conversation had taken place.

What may be the best reflection of the Trump-Netanyahu meeting at Mar-a-Lago has to do with a brief conversation over the phone between Trump and Israeli Minister of Education Yoav Kish. The purpose of the call was for Kish to inform Trump that he will be awarded the Israel Prize on Israel’s Independence Day in 2026.

The award is given out by the minister of education in a televised ceremony attended by Israel’s leaders. It marks the official end of Independence Day celebrations. Its recipients are most frequently career academics at a late stage of their careers. The prize reflects a lifetime’s devotion to the expansion of human knowledge. Sometimes, special prizes are awarded in civic categories, most often for what is called a “life’s work”, such as fostering coexistence between Jews and Palestinians, promoting social equality, etc.

The prize, as understood by its name, is nearly always awarded to Israeli citizens but can be awarded to Jews living abroad and even to non-Jews who have made a “special contribution to the Jewish people”.

In other words, the Trump-Netanyahu meeting involved Trump instructing Netanyahu with regard to upcoming measures and Netanyahu snapping to attention and signalling his acceptance by heaping yet another semi-fictitious honour on Trump’s already crowded head.

Yet, despite these clear displays of the unequal nature of their relationships, there have been persistent voices suggesting that Trump and Netanyahu are operating in cahoots. According to such analyses, the United States fully supports the Israeli attempt to “change the Middle East” – Netanyahu’s favourite phrase – as the Americans make a pivot to Asia and the global race for dominance with China.

Israel will “take care” of the “Iranian threat” as the Arabs languish in their own irresolvable internal tensions and competitions. The mobilisation of Arab states after the Israeli strike on Doha is all but ignored.

These voices also point to the fact that Israel continues to completely ignore the “ceasefire” enacted by “Stage I” of the Trump plan, and does so with the full support of the United States. In fact, Trump said that Israel has “lived up” to the ceasefire “100 percent”, and that he has no problems with Israel’s actions in Gaza. These include bombing, destruction of buildings and infrastructure, the blocking of life-saving aid amid harsh weather and many other steps that ensure and expand the ongoing Israeli genocide.

It is indeed extremely difficult to reconcile this with the notion that Israel has run out of options for delaying Stage II and an internationally-brokered solution to Palestinian statehood. After all, one hears repeatedly from Israeli media about initiatives to “settle Gaza”, “relocate” 1.5 million Palestinians to Somaliland and dismantle the Oslo Accords, one ethnically cleansed Palestinian community at a time.

The US and other countries, like Germany and the UK, continue to buy Israeli arms at a massive rate and to equip Israel with arms of their own. How is it possible to reach a conclusion that the Israeli genocide is reaching its endgame?

The short answer is that it is not. Israel continues to kill, destroy, subvert and expand its efforts to destabilise any semblance of regional order. For example, Israel recognised the statehood of Somaliland in order to have a “dumping ground” for ethnically cleansed Palestinians, but also to pit the United Arab Emirates against Saudi Arabia, as both have conflicting interests in Somalia, and, by doing so, ensure that the Palestinian question is not addressed and that everyone remains frozen by fear of Israeli weapons.

The longer answer recognises the effects of this genocide on Israel itself: Genocide consumes genocidaires.

That is not to suggest that justice is assured by cosmic forces; far from it. Justice should be pursued at the most grounded and realistic level, as should the dignity and preservation of Palestinian lives.

However, the genocide has shaped Israel in its image on a daily, immediate level. Violence is rising as quickly as the prices of the staples, democracy is backsliding, and there is no end in sight to the “forever war”. This is not an abstract, “strategic” matter.

While Israel has been actively seeking to delete Palestinian identity for nearly 80 years, it has not succeeded in doing so. Israel’s internal contradictions have surfaced with paralysing force over the past two years.

Israel will not “die” or “recede”, but the gap between Israeli perceptions of the world and global perceptions of Israel has never been wider.

Trump and his vision of America do not appreciate “losers”. Israel no longer has any “wins” in the offing. It can and does kill and burn, procrastinate and obfuscate.

Even Trump recognises that this power has no lasting effects following its own immediate application. Israel has no options. There is no greater loss.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

I stayed at a hotel that’s been branded one of the worst in the UK and for some reason decided that it would be a good idea to use a UV light in my windowless room

There aren’t that many hotels that charge £10 for windows or are seemingly completely empty the week before Christmas. And there’s only one hotel chain that has been named the worst in the UK for 12 consecutive years. To experience such delights, you’ve got to check yourself into a Britannia.

The chain is the stuff of legend. Fifty years after its first property, the Country House Hotel in Didsbury, Manchester, was opened, it has added around 60 more and grown to stretch across the UK before taking over Pontins.

However, its story is not an entirely positive one. Britannia has been much maligned over the years for (according to some of its unhappy customers at least) turning once grand properties into grimy, unpleasant, and uncomfortable hotels that don’t offer good value, even for their budget price tags.

My first experience in a Britannia came back in 2022, in the heady post-lockdown days when I took the train down to Bournemouth to stay in a hotel that has since been repurposed to house asylum seekers. The stuck fast windows and thick smell of paint ensured it was a hot and sticky night, while the drained outdoor pool, discarded knickers in the courtyard and a scattering of NOS canisters added to the general sense of neglect.

Have you had a memorable hotel stay? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

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With such images in my head, it was with trepidation that I headed to my local Britannia to find out whether anything had changed at the UK’s worst hotel chain.

It hadn’t.

Britannia Hampstead is bleak, albeit in different ways to its sister venue down on the south coast. Here’s a breakdown of its key elements, compared to a recent visit to The Manor in Blakeney, North Norfolk. The Manor is part of the Coaching Inn Group, which was named the UK’s best large hotel chain of 2025 by Which? readers, while Britannia came dead last. Here is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

Vibe

On my Bournemouth trip, things were a lot livelier. There was life in the hotel. I knew because I could hear arguing couples and other people’s TV choices through my room walls. What I would’ve done for even the most muffled background characters this time around. The six-storey London hotel, which is big enough to house a 350-person business suite, was completely dead. The fairy lights flickered, but no one was home.

Contrastingly, the Manor was vibey. It may be a good hour’s cycle from the nearest train station, but even in the dead of November, it was busy, friendly, and warm. The staff were happy to chat, as were the guests lined up at the bar, enjoying special weekends away or a quick drink in what served as their local.

Rooms

It’s certainly not going to win any prizes, but my room in the Hampstead Britannia was much nicer than the Bournemouth one. In Bournemouth, a singular dead fly lay on the windowsill next to a deeply stained armchair. A screw stuck out from a picture frame. For several hours, I was unable to illuminate the room as all but the bathroom lights were out of action, leaving us with the deafeningly loud extractor fan until a cheery man on reception explained that the central electricity switch was hidden beneath the kettle.

In North London, the room was just… a bit bland. It was so clean that my UV torch found absolutely nothing. I can only assume that the strong stench of cleaning fluids had something to do with that. The furnishings were old and mostly brown, but inoffensive. At points during the night, the lack of windows did make me wonder if I was in prison. But I slept, woke and then jailbroke to tell the tale.

Over in Norfolk, it’s a different story. The Manor has 36 rooms, the cheapest of which can be booked for £99 next week. It is classic budget hotel fare, albeit of the quality end of the spectrum. A comfortable double bed, a medium-sized TV, and a well-decorated bathroom. Everything is solid, clean and cheerful.

Staff

As my only fellow humans in the Britannia hotel that night, I have no real complaints about the staff. They seemed nice enough, if not a little distracted when I chatted to them. The receptionist didn’t seem completely sure why the restaurant and bar were closed. Otherwise, my interactions with the staff were limited to them looking at me curiously as I read my book in the empty lobby.

Contrastingly, at the Manor, it’s all about staff. Many of them have been there for well over ten years. About half of them seem to be members of the Hill clan, including Tore, Karen, Sophie and Wayne. They were all on hand at various points during my stay to ensure everything was in its right place and to offer insights into the local area. For me, and the chatty returning customers who knew staff by name, such warmth is a major plus. It transforms the hotel from a place to stay and eat for the night, to somewhere homely that you want to be.

Location

This should be one of Britannia’s strong suits. In my mind, its customers tolerate a low-quality stay because of the convenience of staggering home to a city centre joint after a work away day or stag do. The Hampstead hotel offers none of that. It’s neither near enough the Heath nor Camden to be properly in either, and it’s a long old schlep from the centre of town. I can only imagine the disappointment of tourists who didn’t do enough research before booking.

Blakeney, on the other hand, is a lovely place. Just metres from the hotel’s front is the River Glaven, which winds its way through the National Nature Reserve. Nearby Blakeney Point is renowned for its seal colonies, with Beans Boat offering guided tours throughout the year. Most Coaching Inn Group hotels are in similarly scenic and remote rural locations.

Price

Windowless rooms at the London Britannia cost from £55, according to its website. But mine was closer to £90 with breakfast. If I’d opted for the sought-after window option, that would’ve hit the £100 mark.

The average cost of a room at the Manor is £128. While that isn’t very cheap, in the Which? survey, the hotel was one of only two to score four out of five stars for value for money. The other was Wetherspoons. I visited the Spoons Hotel in Canterbury in November, where a room for the night can be yours for just £55 and the average price is £70.

Spoons easily takes the prize for best value in my book, with Coaching Inn Group not far behind. Britannia, however, offers very little for what is a sizeable price tag. The average home price across all its hotels is £84, according to Which?. Even in 2025, that’s poor.

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OPINION

Milo Boyd

The verdict

Nothing about my stay at the Britannia convinced me that it’s on the up or going to shed its unwanted ‘worst in class’ title anytime soon. I’m sure it’ll bag the bottom spot for a thirteenth time next year.

Britannia’s model seems to be to buy up grand old properties and flog the rooms for cut-price rates. Such is the size of the buildings, renovating to a modern standard would be a costly and risky venture. Far better, I imagine its executives have assumed, to keep costs low, even if profits remain the same. As a result, it’s a franchise with dozens of worn-out buildings that consistently fail to delight.

Contrastingly, Coaching Inn Group is a company that has done things right. For virtually the same price, customers can stay in one of its charming hotels in a warm, comfortable room with staff that seem genuinely invested in their work. Really, there is no competition.

Britannia has been contacted for comment.