Ruth Lorenzo

Ruth Lorenzo Pascual (born 10 November 1982) is a Spanish singer, composer and television personality, best known in the UK for coming fifth in the fifth series of the British TV talent show The X Factor in 2008.

Ruth Lorenzo was born on 10 November 1982 in the Region of Murcia, in south-eastern Spain.

At a very young age she became a fan of the musical Annie and although she had no idea of what the words meant she would sing along to the songs in English.

When she was six years old she discovered music by Catalan opera singer Montserrat Caballé, and after her mother bought her an album by Caballé, Lorenzo began to sing opera, imitating Caballé's vocals until she was pitch perfect.

At the age of 12, Lorenzo's family moved to Utah in the United States and this was the first time she had the opportunity to be involved in music at school.

After much encouragement from her teachers, Lorenzo was entered into competitions and played lead roles in musical productions such as The Phantom of the Opera and My Fair Lady.

When Lorenzo turned 16 the family returned to Spain and although having had singing lessons by this time, she had to cancel these lessons due to family financial difficulty and as a result Lorenzo gave up on her dream of becoming a recording artist.

When Lorenzo was 19 she joined a rock band, which was a challenge for her as she had only sung opera music.

She also made a big decision to quit her job in her family's business in order to pursue her dreams once again, but after three years of touring around Spain the group decided to split up.

Ruth landed a contract at Polaris World where as well as performing, she worked as a PR consultant.

In 2008, Lorenzo auditioned for the fifth series of The X Factor in front of judges Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh.

She sang "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman".

She impressed the judges and made it through to the next stage of the show, "bootcamp".

Lorenzo passed both stages of bootcamp and was sent to St. Tropez with the other successful contestants from the over-25s category.

There she auditioned in front of Dannii Minogue who was her X Factor mentor.

After an emotional performance of "True Colors", sung in Spanish, Minogue decided to pick Lorenzo for her final three who would proceed to the live shows.

On the first live show she sang "Take My Breath Away" in English and Spanish.

She had mainly good comments, especially from Cowell, who told her she should sing in Spanish more often.

However, the next week Lorenzo sang "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" in English only, and ended up in the bottom two.

She performed "Purple Rain" in the singoff, and it saved her into the next week.

In Week 5, Lorenzo was in the bottom two again against one of the crowd favourites Laura White.

This time she sang "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and was saved by Cowell, Minogue and Walsh.

Her performance was overshadowed by the uproar over White's departure.

Voting statistics revealed that White received more votes than Lorenzo meaning if Walsh sent the result to deadlock, White would’ve been saved.

During Take That week, Lorenzo sang "Love Ain't Here Anymore".

She received high praise for her performance, with Cowell saying it was sensational.

By the quarter-final, Lorenzo was Minogue's last remaining act and she was eliminated after receiving the fewest public votes.

Lorenzo bowed out with another performance of "Always".

Former friend Alexandra Burke went on to win the show.

Lorenzo performed at gigs across the UK and Ireland in December 2008 and January 2009.

Her debut single "Burn" entered the Spanish Singles Charts and reached number 16 when she released the single on 27 June 2011.

She released her first UK single "The Night" on 15 June 2013, featuring a club remix by Almighty.

She represented Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 with the song "Dancing In The Rain", scoring 74 points in the final and finishing in 10th place; the song peaked at #5 in the Spanish Singles Chart

And also charted in the UK at #101.

Artists such as Auryn and Dannii Minogue have included compositions of hers in their albums.

Her debut album 'Planeta Azul' was released on 27 October 2014, with number six single on the Spanish Single Charts ‘Gigantes’.

She achieved a Guinness World Records in 2016 for performing in eight different Spanish cities in 12 hours, in a breast cancer awareness charity event.

In November 2017 ‘Good Girls Don't Lie’ was released as the first single of her second album 'Loveaholic' (9 March 2018).

The song made it to number one iTunes Spain on the first 24 hours.

Loveaholic includes a collaboration of guitarist Jeff Beck.