X Factor contestant Misha B accuses the ITV show of creating a ‘bullying storyline’

X Factor star Misha B has accused the ITV show of scripting a bullying ‘storyline’ to sabotage her chances at winning the competition.

Misha was just 19 when she appeared on the singing competition in 2011, and was a favourite to win under the guidance of judge Kelly Rowland.

But during the third live show, judges Tulisa Contostavlos and Louis Walsh accused Misha of being a bully, which left her feeling suicidal.   

On Sunday Misha shared a clip of the bullying row on her Instagram page, writing that she has ‘received many calls and messages throughout the last couple of months regarding this incident.’

‘Seeing the continuous mistreatment of my brothers and sisters all around the world has reawakened the PTSD that I have worked tirelessly to uproot and I know I do not stand alone on this.’

‘In 2011 what I thought at the time would be the best opportunity for me, turned out to be the most painful experience of my life.’

‘What you see in this video is 1% of what I endured. They saw an opportunity to tear down a black girl that came from a broken home and worked together to assassinate my character and to sabotage my career by orchestrating lies.’ 

Later, during an hour-long Instagram Live, Misha claimed that X Factor producers told the judges to accuse her of bullying other contestants, leading to Tulisa and Louis calling her ‘feisty’ ‘over-confident’ and ‘mean,’ live on air.  

‘I could feel Louis was on verbal violence. Louis has then said something about me being confident, but then he says maybe I’m too over confident. Let me just make this very clear, these judges spent a maximum of 1 per cent time with me and their contestants, apart from Gary [Barlow] and Kelly [Rowland],’ Misha said.

Misha continued: ‘My understanding is you created this whole narrative of me being over confident because I’m black and in your eyes black girls should not be confident, black girls are just one off.’

Referencing Louis’ comparisons of her to other black singers, she said: ‘You look like a young Tina Turner, you look like a young Chaka Khan, why is it always we have to look like someone else? Why is there always a comparison for black women? I am tired, I am tired, I am tired.’

Moving onto Tulisa, Misha accused the judge of having ‘every line scripted before she even opened up her mouth’ 

”Feisty’ she threw, followed by ‘mean,’ common words used to describe black women. This woman spent zero time with me,’ Misha claimed, adding that the next day both Tulisa and Louis apologised.

‘The only conversation this woman [Tulisa] had with me was after this happened when she gave me a halfhearted apology.’

Misha said she felt like ‘my whole world stopped,’ after the incident live on air, before she went backstage and cried. Later, the singer said she had suicidal thoughts, telling her fans:

‘When all those allegations happened … I remember of thinking up ways to end my own life. I remember of thinking up ways that I could end the pain. That was the first time in my whole life I ever felt suicidal. 

X Factor judge Gary Barlow opened up about the incident in his book A Better Me a few years later, claiming that bosses on the show told the judges to use the bullying line.

‘About half an hour before the show goes live, the producers would come in and they’d go, “Oh my God. That Misha. She’s a bully. Can’t believe it. She is such a bully. In fact, you know what? You should say it. You should say it on air. She’s bullied everyone all week,”’ he wrote. 

During the hour-long Instagram Live, Misha also claimed that her ‘first experience of racism on the show’ came after her acclaimed performance of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep. Despite receiving messages of support from the likes of Kylie Minogue, she felt ‘super overwhelmed’ and ‘withdrew’.  

She said other contestants approached her backstage and told her ‘this person has said this about your performance.;

‘That was my first experience with people being insecure within their own abilities and projecting that insecurity onto me, saying she’s not that good, the only thing that was good about her performance was the beat and her rapping is s***, and these were other contestants on the show.’  

Misha also claimed that other contestants, including eventual winners Little Mix, were told that she had been talking about them, which she strongly denied.

She also said producers proposed to change her stage name to Misha B to ‘play into their corrupted agenda for the ‘Misha Bully’ they had already orchestrated for this.’ 

Misha eventually finished fourth on the 2011 series, with the singer praising her mentor Kelly Rowland for her support. 

She went on to sign a record deal, releasing a 2012 single, Home Run, which debuted at number 11 in the UK chart.

She later toured with Nicki Minaj and released further singles and EPs, before leaving her record company in 2014 to set up her own label Emboom. 

Representatives for X Factor and the 2011 judges have been approached for comment by MailOnline.