Derm in ‘sweat’ revenge

‘STUNG’: O’Leary JAMES INGHAM DERMOT O’Leary found out he’d been axed from X Factor by reading it in the Daily Star Sunday.

The TV host knew he was being replaced by Olly Murs and Caroline Flack only after we exclusively revealed it.

Opening up about his surprise sacking last year, Dermot said: “Yes, it stung to find out they were looking for someone else.

“Normally the contract gets sorted out in February. When it dragged on to March, I started thinking.

“Then the Daily Star Sunday broke the story and I found out they’d offered it to someone else, so I walked.

“You do feel a little bit snubbed, but you get on with it. It’s not my divine right. “But then the next week I started to see the light through the woods again.”

Simon Cowell, 56, asked Dermot, 43, to return this year to combat sliding ratings.

But the Radio 2 DJ confessed he made his old boss “sweat”.

He said: “It wasn’t a no brainer to come back. I did need to have chats with people.

“I did make him sweat a little bit.” BOYBAND 5AM have hit back at claims they mimed in their X Factor audition.

Viewers accused Kieran Alleyne, Nathan Lewis and Jordan Lee of faking following their performance of Drake’s One Dance.

But Keiran said: “How can you mime during an audition? To be honest it just made us chuckle. We are taking it as a compliment as people must think we are that good. “We are just looking forward to the six-chair challenge so we can show people what we can do.”

The trio hope to be the first boyband to win the competition.