X Factor's Dalton Harris hits number one on the official Vodafone Big Top 40

From Robbie Williams missing two of the live shows, to one episode being hit with some problems leading to the vote being axed, the X Factor saw some of its lowest ratings yet.

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But it seems the most recent X Factor winner, Dalton Harris, may have changed the show’s fortunes, after his debut duet with James Arthur reached the top of official Vodafone Big Top 40 just seven days after he took the win for his mentor, Louis Tomlinson.

Harris’s chart-topping single comes after he performed the duet with Arthur at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball with Coca-Cola, performing to 15,000 fans at the O2.

The 24-year-old, who previously won a similar-style singing competition in his home country of Jamaica, said winning the X Factor was his chance to “change his life”, after growing up in poverty.

"It was poverty,” he told The Sun Online. "My mum had seven of us. I grew up with two older sisters. Everybody else was spread out. It was impoverished. It was poverty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVaoAjjUs0M

“Everybody needs a start. If you were lucky you would get a present for your birthday. We knew we didn't have money."

However, despite his success on the reality show, Harris adds that he didn’t want to just be known as another ‘X Factor’ winner, insisting he wanted to be “a real artist.”

"I want to be taken seriously as an artist. Coming off of X Factor, which is such an awesome thing, I don’t want to just be The X Factor guy,” he told the Mail.

"I want to be a real artist. I want to have a career. I am ready to work. I want to make an album.

"I don’t think winning guarantees anything and I also don’t think winning marks you with an X which means, 'Because you win you will be successful or because you win will not be successful.'

"It all depends on the product. I’m a singer and I love to sing but it’s business. Anything can happen to anybody."

It seems with the first number 1 in the bag, Harris is well on the way to the success he craves.

Tune into The Official Vodafone Big Top 40, Sundays from 4pm – 7pm, on air, on digital radio and online at bigtop40.com.

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