Terrified: Katie Waissel says receiving death threats on The X Factor has left her too nervous to go out on her own
She was easily the most controversial contestant on this year's X Factor, so much so that she started getting angry letters and even death threats from some viewers.
But Katie Waissel has now revealed that she has been left terrified by the threats, to the extent that she is too scared to take public transport, or even do something as simple as shopping.
The 24-year-old singer, who was voted off The X Factor two weeks ago, admits she is too nervous to go out on her own at any time.
Referring to receiving death threats, Katie told Grazia magazine: 'That was totally terrifying.
'I still won’t do anything on my own like go on the Tube or go shopping, I mean that’s how crazy this got.
'People might not like me but I don’t think I deserve that.'
And Katie also said she didn't know how to cope when she quickly become 'the most hated woman in Britain'.
She said: 'To be honest it’s been horrendous. I wasn’t prepared for it, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m not a celebrity, I’m just someone who wants to sing.
'From the moment I got through to the live finals I knew all hell had broken out, but I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
'I can’t say how hard it was going out week after week with people booing. I didn’t know what to do or say. I felt that whatever I said would be wrong. So I just put barriers up, tried to convince myself to shut down.'
Katie added that she tried to turn to mentor Cheryl Cole for help, but felt the judge was too wrapped up in her own problems, so she instead asked Louis Walsh for help.
She said: 'Cheryl told me not to read the papers and she was nice but she had her own problems. This show has been tough for her.
'Cheryl and I didn’t have long chats - she would just advise me not to read the papers and say she had had a hard time too. She’s very focused, which you have to be. I don’t have her mobile number so I don’t know if we will keep in touch. I admire her.
'But Louis was my absolute favourite. He gave me his mobile number and I’ll definitely keep in touch. He understood how awful it was for me to be painted in a way I could do nothing about.'
Difficult: Katie said she turned to mentor Cheryl Cole for support, but she was struggling with her own problems, so she asked Louis Walsh instead
And Katie also said she struggled to make friends with her fellow X Factor contestants during her time on the show.
She explained: 'With people from the house slagging me off, there was nowhere I could drop my guard. Matt Cardle thought I had sold a story about him. I couldn’t convince him otherwise. After that, he lashed out at me in the press, which really hurt.
'Aiden was his best friend and laid into me too. I was an easy target. There were two people who I liked and trusted: Mary and Rebecca. They are the loveliest people. Apart from that I was on my own and it was terrifying.'
And it was consistently coming in the bottom two in the show which Katie found the most difficult to cope with.
She said: 'Towards the end, I’d just crawl into a blanket and cry. I wanted to bury myself in a hole. But I’d think about all those sacrifices my dad made for me and how much it would have meant to my granddad and I forced myself to try and switch my emotions off and get on with it.
'Every week I was so anxious. I was worried about fainting on Sunday nights - I’d grip Cheryl’s arm so much I probably marked her. I’d jiggle my feet to force myself to focus.'
Now she has been voted off the show, Katie is hoping to continue her singing but says she isn't sure whether she will become a recording artist.
She said: 'I want to sing but there’s no record contract. Nothing. I just want to do gigs, to carry on writing and to try and turn a negative into a positive.'
The full interview with Katie appears in this week's Grazia magazine, out now.
Source:Dailymail
