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By BARBARA DAVIES
Piling on the pathos: X Factor winner Matt Cardle's sob story about taking in bereaved boys has been dismissed as 'hokum'As close followers of the X Factor will testify, a good voice is an advantage, but having a good tale to tell is essential.
And Matt Cardle’s story was a showstopper.
After an emotional rendition of the Roberta Flack hit The First Time (Ever I Saw Your Face), he told how his selfless mother Jennifer had cared for her best friend Sharon Floyd’s four sons after she was killed in a car crash.
'Brothers': Tom and Julian Floyd recorded a video message for an emotional Cardle (inset)His story went down such a treat with the punters that hours before Sunday’s final, he told it all over again in a newspaper, declaring: ‘Overnight I gained four brothers.’
Sure enough, 27-year-old Cardle’s testimony helped him to victory and a £1million recording contract.
What a shame it’s almost entirely untrue.
At his home in prosperous Kingswood, Surrey, 62-year-old property developer David Floyd, father of Cardle’s so-called ‘brothers’ and the widower of Sharon, described the story pumped out by the X Factor publicity machine as ‘complete nonsense’.
His sons, he added, have never lived with Matt Cardle or his family, with whom, he adds, he and his wife were not even close friends.
‘It’s complete hokum,’ he said. ‘Being their father, it was me who raised my own sons after their mother died. It was a very difficult time. I also paid for all of them to go to boarding school and during the holidays they were with me.
As seen on TV: Cardle's parents also filmed an emotional video message. But their links to the Floyd family may have been wildly exaggerated‘Sharon would have been astounded at the very idea of the Cardles adopting our children.'
They were nice enough people but the idea that Matt Cardle and my sons are somehow foster brothers is absolutely laughable. They were school friends. They occasionally went to their home for sleepovers.’
After his performance of The First Time, Cardle’s teary-eyed mentor Dannii Minogue gave him a standing ovation and declared in front of millions of live television viewers: ‘I wish everyone at home knew the story you told me about why you sang that. I know it’s really personal for your family.’
Cardle, who described himself as a painter and decorator, duly obliged, saying: ‘My mum took on those kids and they absolutely made our family bigger and better.’
In his subsequent newspaper interview, he added: ‘Words can’t really describe how we all felt after Sharon’s sad loss.
source: dailymail [endtext]