Martin Bashir believes he should have been eliminated from \'The X Factor: Celebrity\' instead of Olivia Olson.
The 56-year-old journalist was saved by Simon Cowell on Saturday\'s (26.10.19) show when he landed in the bottom two against \'Love Actually\' actress Olivia, but he was surprised to progress deeper into the competition.
Speaking at the Pride of Britain Awards on Monday (28.10.19), he told The Sun Online: "What a beautiful person Olivia is, with an incredible voice.
"She should have stayed in, I shouldn\'t have got through.
"To be perfectly honest I didn\'t think I\'d get through Simon Cowell\'s house. I would have been very happy to have finished there."
Simon admitted he saved Martin because he believed the viewers would prefer to see him continue with his newfound passion for singing.
During the auditions, Martin emotionally revealed his younger brother Tommy died in 1991 aged 29 after a lifelong struggle against the muscle disease muscular dystrophy.
He told the judges - also made up of Louis Walsh and Nicole Scherzinger - that his late brother\'s memory convinced him to join \'The X Factor: Celebrity\'.
Martin said: "The real reason why I\'m here is that I am one of five children and my precious brother Tommy was born with muscular dystrophy.
"When you grow up with a child and you fight over toys and you\'re aged four and he never fights back and then by the time he is 13 he can\'t feed himself, you feel that you have no excuse for turning down opportunities.
"Every time I have faced a challenge, I have heard him whispering, saying, \'What excuse do you have? You have no excuse, you have never sung but someone has come to you and said give it a shot,\' and that is my motivation."
