It's been reported in various quarters that Sisi Jghalef tried to kill herself last weekend after being kicked out of The X Factor. The former member of girl group Hope was ejected when producers found out she hadn't yet completed a community service order for a conviction of racially threatening behaviour towards a black McDonald's worker.

"Once my X Factor dream was shattered I plunged into a bottomless pit of total depression and worthlessness," Sisi told The People. "On the outside I still tried to be the same bubbly Sisi going out clubbing and being the life and soul of the party but inside I was falling apart."

"One night I sat in my bedroom watching over and over re-runs of the wonderful moment I'd been told I'd made the final," she continued. "It was everything I'd ever wanted and worked towards. I laid on my bed crying my eyes out and sobbing uncontrollably knowing it was never going to happen."

"I stumbled into the bathroom to wash away the tears and saw a bottle of paracetamol on the cabinet. I unscrewed the cap and emptied the bottle into my quivering palm - some spilling on the floor as I was shaking so much. I can't remember how many there were and just swallowed them with a gulp of water as I stared back at my swollen face in the mirror... I threw the bottle into the sink and ran back into the bedroom and climbed into bed pulling the sheets over my head waiting to fade away."

Luckily Sisi was rescued by her mother, who found her daughter in time and stuck her fingers down Sisi's throat to get her to bring the tablets back up.

"As I started to feel drowsy my mum rushed into the room after finding the bottle in the bathroom sink and pills all over the floor. She sat me up screaming my name and stuck her fingers down my throat making me vomit.

I kept retching until I couldn't throw up anymore and fell into my mothers arms crying hysterically. Mum kept saying, 'My baby, my baby' as she hugged me tightly. We just held on to each other with me being unable to say anything.

If my mum hadn't found me then I would be dead by now."

Sisi claims TV chiefs abandoned her without worrying about the consequences. She said: "I could have understood it if I hadn't made the final, but to have been told I was then in and let the TV cameras record my joy only to then be told I was axed was too much to take."

Although she appeared in a raunchy photo spread in a lads' magazine just last week, Sisi claims she was just putting on a brave front, and inside she was in agony:

"I posed in black stockings and suspenders talking about my confidence and determination to still become a star. But it was all a sham. Depression was engulfing me like a giant black cloud and inside I was shaking like a leaf. After the first wave of depression hit me I contemplated slitting my wrists in a hot bath but didn't have the courage. All I've ever wanted since I was a little girl was to become a singer. Now all I'm left with is thinking over what could have been."

Sisi claims to be speaking out now to warn others of the pressures of these kind of shows. And she's not the first to react so badly to rejection: Big Brother 6 contestants Lesley Sanderson, 21, and Sam Heuston, 26, tried to kill themselves after they were booted out.

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