The eighth UK series of The X Factor was broadcast on ITV from 20 August 2011, with the live shows starting on 8 October 2011. The winner was girl group Little Mix, while the runner-up was Marcus Collins.

The "Boys" category was mentored by Gary Barlow. Contestants in this category are males aged 16 to 24. The eight candidates were Frankie Cocozza, Marcus Collins, Craig Colton, Joe Cox, Luke Lucas, James Michael, Max Vickers and John Wilding. Barlow chose

Frankie Cocozza (Born 17 January 1993) is a singer from Brighton. He auditioned for X Factor with Valerie, and despite showing his tattooed backside got a yes from all four judges and was put through to bootcamp. He then sang Iris at bootcamp and was put through to the judges' houses with Gary Barlow as his mentor. At judges' houses he sang What's My Name, and was put through to live shows. For the first live show, he sang The A Team and was safe. Week two he sang The Scientist, but was in the bottom two with Nu Vibe and had to sing again for survival. For his survival song, Cocozza sang Red and was saved by his mentor who the following week admitted that he should have been sent home. In week three, Cocozza sang Get Your Rocks Off, and was saved. It was later confirmed that Cocozza had sworn on live TV. In Halloween week, he sang Should I stay or Should I go, and was safe. Week five, Cocozza sang I Got A Feeling and was safe. On 8 November 2011, Frankie was sacked from X Factor for taking drugs.

Dark horse is a term used to describe a little-known person or thing that emerges to prominence, especially in a competition of some sort or a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed.

The term began as horse racing parlance. A dark horse is a race horse that is not known to gamblers and thus is difficult to place betting odds on.

The earliest-known use of the phrase is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."

The term has been used politically in such countries as Peru, Philippines and United States.

Politically, the term reached America in the nineteenth century when it was first applied to James K. Polk, a relatively unknown Tennessee Democrat who won the Democratic Party's 1844 presidential nomination over a host of better-known candidates. Polk won the nomination on the ninth ballot, and went on to win the presidential election.

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known by her stage name Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Perry grew up with gospel music, and during her first year of high school she pursued a music career as Katy Hudson, releasing her first studio album called Katy Hudson which failed to chart. She recorded a solo album later, which was never released. After signing with Capitol Music Group in 2007, her fourth record label in seven years, she adopted the stage name Katy Perry.

She first gained recognition with the release of her first mainstream album, One of the Boys in 2008, which spawned three Billboard Hot 100 top-ten songs—"I Kissed A Girl", "Hot n Cold" and "Waking Up In Vegas". Perry supported the album with her Hello Katy Tour. In 2010, her third studio album, Teenage Dream (2010), which topped the Billboard 200 chart, and spawned five number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T." and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—Teenage Dream was the only album (after Michael Jackson's Bad)—to do so, and the first female in history to achieve this milestone. She embarked on the California Dreams Tour, which grossed nearly $60 million worldwide. Perry re-released the album under the name of Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection on March 26, 2012, and the re-release has already spawned the number-one single "Part of Me".