Matt Cardle is one of this year's big X Factor hopefuls but his parents have revealed that the 27-year-old battled cancer.
In an interview with Now Magazine, his mother Jenny, 59 and dad, David, 60, said: "Matt was two when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. It was a hellish time and every parent's worst nightmare."
He had an aggressive tumour and underwent chemotherapy, resulting in hair loss and he had a kidney removed, but he managed to beat the illness.
His mother added: "It's extremely emotional seeing him perform on TV.
"He wanted to perform for a wide audience and he's got probably the biggest audience he could ever have hoped for.
"Music took over his life at an early age and it's all he ever wanted to do. He did every job going just to scrape the money together to spend a few hours in a recording studio."
