Calum Scott

Calum Scott (born 12 October 1988) is an English singer and songwriter.

On 15 August 2013, Scott won the talent competition Mail's Star Search, organised by Hull Daily Mail.

He then joined a Maroon 5 tribute band, Maroon 4, and toured around the United Kingdom.

Despite obvious nerves at seeing his sister get rejected, Calum performed a cover of Robyn's "Dancing on My Own", which he had heard Kings of Leon performing on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge in 2013.

Following a standing ovation from the judging panel, Cowell pressed the Golden Buzzer giving Scott an automatic place in the live shows.

Explaining his decision to send Scott straight to the semi-finals, Cowell said:

After this audition, Scott received support from stars such as Little Mix and Ashton Kutcher.

Following his appearance on the show's first episode, his Twitter followers jumped from 400 to over 25,000.

The video of his audition has been viewed over 378 million times on YouTube.

In the semi-final on 29 May, Scott performed "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" by Jermaine Stewart.

Walliams commented "You really sound like a recording artist", whilst Alesha Dixon suggested that he could have "success around the world".

He won the semi-final with 25.6% of the vote, sending him straight through to the final.

In the final on 31 May, Scott performed "Diamonds" by Rihanna and finished sixth out of 12 contestants with 8.2% of the vote.

After Britain's Got Talent, Scott embarked on a series of shows around the United Kingdom, including Viking FM Future Star Awards, Flamingo Land Resort Fair, Westwood Cross Shopping Centre's tenth anniversary, Gibraltar Summer Nights, Hull Daily Mail's Star and Dartford Festival.

In 2014 he formed the electronic duo, The Experiment with John McIntyre.

The debut single, "Girl (You're Beautiful)", was released on 14 June.

The duo performed the song on Good Morning Britain and BBC Look North, but after, broke up.

In April 2015, he rose to prominence after competing on the ITV talent contest Britain's Got Talent, where he performed his version of Robyn's hit "Dancing on My Own" and earned Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer.

On 11 April 2015, Scott's audition for the ninth series of Britain's Got Talent was broadcast on ITV.

Just before his audition, his sister Jade also auditioned but was stopped early on both of her songs by Simon Cowell.

Jade received four "No" votes from David Walliams, Alesha Dixon, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell.

After coming sixth in the contest, he released his version as a single the following year, which peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart and became Britain's best-selling single of summer 2016.

Scott released his cover of "Dancing on My Own" independently on 15 April 2016.

It became a sleeper hit, first hitting number 40 in the charts in May and climbing into the top 40 despite little radio airplay apart from on West Hull FM. It was then added to Radio 2's "C List" and reached number two on the UK Singles Chart on 5 August.

In August 2016, it was certified platinum in the UK, having sold over 600,000 copies.

Scott announced on Twitter on 24 May that he had inked a record deal with Capitol Records, where he was signed by A&R Executive Alex Wilhelm.

Scott performed the song at television shows BBC Look North, Lorraine, Weekend, Late Night with Seth Meyers and Brazilian show Encontro com Fátima Bernardes.

He also promoted the song on several radio stations, including BBC Radio Humberside, Viking FM, Radio Gibraltar, BFBS Radio and Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation.

On 16 September, he released the promotional single "Transformar" with Brazilian recording artist Ivete Sangalo as the official song of the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro; they performed the song at the closing ceremony on 18 September.

It was revealed in September 2016 that "Dancing on My Own" was the most downloaded song of the summer in the UK.

In autumn 2022, "Dancing On My Own" had a sudden resurgence in popularity due to the Philadelphia Phillies players and fans embracing the dance mix version of the song during the team's run to the 2022 World Series.

Scott later signed with Capitol and in 2017, released the single "You Are the Reason", which was included on his 2018 debut album Only Human, which reached number 4 on the UK Albums Chart now over one billion streams.

In 2017, he toured the US and released the single "You Are the Reason".

Later in 2018, he collaborated with Leona Lewis to release a duet version of "You Are the Reason".

Scott was born in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, to parents Debbie Burton and Kevin Scott, and grew up around the Yorkshire area, mainly North Ferriby and Kingston upon Hull.

His parents split up when he was two years old, and his father moved to Canada.

He has a younger sister, Jade, who is also a singer.

Scott played the drums, and his sister later encouraged him to sing.

Prior to his fame, he worked in human resources.

Also in 2017, he began working on his debut album, Only Human, which was released on 9 March 2018.