Rythmix’s Jesy Nelson decided she wanted to be a singer just weeks before auditioning on The X Factor, the Romford girl’s mum revealed to the Recorder this week.

The 20-year-old former Abbs Cross School pupil this week made it through to The X Factor top-12, despite deciding she wanted to pursue a singing career just weeks before.

Jesy and her four-girl group Rythmix were ecstatic after making it through to the next round on the live Sunday night show, with proud mum Janis Nelson admitting there were plenty of nerves beforehand.

She said: “I never thought in a million years she’d be able to do it. Jesy wouldn’t even perform in front of me! She’d lock herself in her room and practice.

“She literally only decided a couple of weeks before the audition to start singing.”

The girls, including Jesy, Perrie Edwards, 18, Leigh-Ann Pinnock, 19 and Jade Thirlwall, 18, wowed the judges with their performance of Nicki Minaj’s Superbass.

Afterwards, Judge Gary Barlow said: “It is week one (of the live shows) and you are already the best girl band that has ever been on The X Factor.”

Mum Janis said Jesy had always got As in music at Jo Richardson Community School in Dagenham and had worked as a bar maid at Goals in Dagenham before going on the show.

She added: “The girls get along amazingly well. They’re so young and fresh and versatile – there’s no one out there like them at the moment.”

However, Coopers’ Company & Coborn School pupil Charley Bird, of group 2 Shoes, wasn’t so lucky after being voted off the show.

But Charley’s mum Julie, of Langdon Hills, said the girls were concentrating on the positives, adding: “To make it this far is fantastic.”