My Niki isn't after the sympathy vote

Oct 19 2007 By Emma Cullwick, Birmingham Mail

X FACTOR hopeful Niki Evans is being deluged with "cruel and hurtful" messages from fans of the show who say she is using sob stories to win the sympathy vote.

Her worried mum, Annette Rolph, said fans were sending the hateful messages to a host of websites.

Most criticise Niki for revealing she entered the show after finding an application form in her father's belongings following his sudden death in September last year.2006

But Annette, aged 56, who lives near Niki in Polesworth, near Tamworth, said the programme's editing was to blame for many of the problems.

"Some of the messages are really nasty and it's extremely upsetting," she said.

"The last thing Niki wants is to get the sympathy vote. She's incredibly talented and she thoroughly deserves to be in the final.

"The problem is the makers of the programme kept asking her about her dad and how he'd feel if he could see her, which obviously made her upset."

Annette added: "It's then edited to make it look like all she does is cry about it.

"We're not naive and we know the show does it to make good TV, but it doesn't show the real Niki. She's a very strong, warm and funny person and it takes a lot to upset her.

"When they filmed the auditions for the X Factor it was the first anniversary of her father's death and it was a very emotional time for her, but hopefully now people will get to see the bubbly Niki her family knows and loves."

Annette, a hospitality and catering worker, says she has been busy helping to look after Niki's husband, 34-year- old Darren, and two children, Morgan, 12, and Jonah, 10, while the budding star is living in a luxury mansion in London with the other final- ists.

"We all really miss her and we only get to have brief chats on the phone.

"The boys miss her terribly. She's such a great mum and she dotes on her sons. She must be finding it incredibly difficult to be away from them."

She said the family are likely to have an emotional reunion when they see each other for the first time in two weeks at the live show tomorrow.

Annette says she hopes Niki, a catering manager at Polesworth International School, has what it takes to win the show.

"It's anybody's game, but I think she's at the right place in her life. She's older and she has the maturity to handle it.

"Niki's done the rounds singing in the pubs and clubs, getting changed in grotty toilets. She knows it's not all glamorous and she's a hard grafter."