Sultry Ruth Lorenzo was one of the stars of X Factor 2008, although she was knocked out in week 8.  To keep track of Ruth Lorenzo's latest gigs and album, please visit my main Ruth Lorenzo page.

This is just a retrospective of some of her X-Factor highlights.

This was Ruth Lorenzo's last song on X-Factor and to be fair it wasn't her best.  I still think she should have stayed in the competition but in retrospect she may be better off not winning because she regained her independence.  Her record deal with EMI may prove better for her than one with Sony had she won.

Ruth was a very gracious loser. Listen to what she said the morning after she was voted out.

In the sixth live show, Ruth turned in a performance of Angels to rival the Robbie Williams original. The staging was also really well done - congrats to the production team for this one.

Louis Walsh embarassed himself in the commentary afterwards by saying that there are two things keeping Ruth in the compeition ...!

In the fifth live show Ruth Lorenzo sang My All, a Mariah Carey song. It's the weakest of all her songs but the red dress has become infamous for it's showcasing of Ruth's other assets!

Not surpisingly she ended up in a sing-off against Laura - but sang Knocking on Heaven's Door to win through to Week 6. Like Purple Rain for the Week 3 sing off, Knocking on Heave's Door suited Ruth perfectly and her performance was wonderful. I hope this is the sort of song she has on her album.

You'd have thought that Ella Fitzgerald's Summertime in Big Band Week wouldn't have suited Ruth Lorenzo who's probably really a rock/pop singer. How wrong we were. Vocally it probably didn't allow Ruth to show the power she has, but she it demonstrated she has great control and a wonderful sense of timing - which is something I've always believed really important.

However for some reason she ended up in the sing off and sang Purple Rain.  I'd love to put the video of that on here because it was her stand out performance of the competition but there's a problem.  It's a Prince track and well ... he doesn't allow his songs to be on YouTube.

Louis described Ruth Lorenzo's performance as passionate and dramatic and it was a really great performance even though she wasn't well.

This was the song that launched Ruth Lorenzo in the hearts of the British public. She was the 11th (out of 12) act on in the first live show and wowed everyone with a sultry performance of Berlin's Take my Breath Away, singing part of the first verse in Spanish.