X Factor: Shy Rebecca Ferguson wouldn't sing to boyfriend for TWO YEARS By Jon Kaila 16/10/2010

SHY Rebecca Ferguson had so little confidence in her voice that she refused to sing for her boyfriend until TWO YEARS after they met.

And even then the star, who has dazzled the judges with her soulful performances, insisted Karl Dures stood with his face to the wall to spare her embarrassment.

Now, thanks to the show, nervous Rebecca, 24, is finally starting to believe in herself and Karl – who split from her last year after they “drifted apart” – insists viewers still haven’t seen anything like her full potential.

He told the Sunday Mirror: “Becky has not shown half of what she can do. She won’t just win The X Factor – she’ll be its biggest star.”

Bricklayer Karl, 25, who met Rebecca on holiday in Tenerife in 2003, when she was 17 and he was 18, said: “From day one she told me she was a singer.

“She would go to auditions and try to get her name out there but nothing ever happened. She auditioned for The X Factor in 2004 but didn’t get past the first round.”

That year the couple had daughter Lillie-May together. But it was not until a year later that Rebecca – who sang Feeling Good last night – felt she could sing in front of her man. Karl said: “One day at home, totally out of the blue, she said she had a song for me. But she wouldn’t sing it until I turned around and faced the wall.

“It was a Beverley Craven song, Promise Me, and from the first line the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.

“It was incredible. I was dumbstruck. I thought, ‘Whoa, this girl is good’.

“Yet even though I was her partner she couldn’t sing in front of me unless I faced the wall.

“She hasn’t had singing lessons – she is self-taught but is a natural talent. She sings at karaoke and has the crowd on its feet, blowing everyone away.”

That year, when their son Karl Jnr was born, she applied to be on the show again but was overcome by nerves at having to sing in front of thousands of people at Manchester United’s Old Trafford.

Rebecca has wanted to be famous since she was very young, said Karl, who is now based in Melbourne, Australia, but phones his ex almost every day.

Karl reckons her painful shyness – now seen by The X Factor’s 16 million viewers – is because of her difficult childhood in Anfield, Liverpool.

He said: “Becky has had a hard life.

“At school she was surrounded by middle-class children who would have new bags and clothes and things, and she had none of that and got bullied for it. She doesn’t want our children to have the life she did.” Rebecca also encountered racism growing up – which inspired her choice of a Sam Cooke civil rights anthem at the X Factor auditions.

Karl said: “That song she sang for the audition, A Change is Gonna Come, was all about racism in America. She feels strongly about that and that’s why the song meant so much to her. It’s why she was almost crying at the end. I think her parents played it a lot.”

Devout Christian Becky usually goes to church every weekend, taking her children with her, and recently finished a course to be a legal secretary.

Karl said: “Becky has been to college, so if this does fail, she has something to fall back on.

“The kids come first and singing could send them to good schools and give them a good house.

“But although Becky has the ability to be in the big time she feels she is getting old. She thinks this is her last chance at a singing career – it’s now or never.”

But Karl reckons that having her voice praised by the X Factor judges has given Rebecca the confidence she needs.

He added: “When I’ve been speaking to her it’s been as though she felt she had already won, because amazing people like Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole were recognising her as a singer for the first time. Now she has that confidence, just watch her fly.”