See X-Factor's Most Emotional Audition That Drove Simon Cowell to Tears

Over the years, The X Factor saw numerous brilliant performances, but there was just one that managed to move usually cold-headed and highly critical Simon Cowell to tears.

During the first week of auditions for Season 12, Josh Daniel came on the stage to steal the hearts of the judges and viewers singing Labrinth's hit song 'Jealous.' As the singer later revealed, the track had a special meaning for him, as Josh had lost his best friend a couple of years earlier and interpreted the song 'in a completely different way.'

'And I kind of see it in the sense that I'm jealous that he's now happy in heaven, that he's moved on to a better place, and that I can't still be with him,' the singer's foreword went.

As Josh was singing, nobody dared say a word. Even very opinionated Simon Cowell didn't comment on Daniel's performance — something the show's fans weren't used to seeing. Suppressing tears, Cowell rushed to withdraw himself from the set as soon as the audition, the last one that day, was over.

Evidently, Simon hadn't been so vulnerable on the show before. But he didn't censor the moment even though he could as The X Factor's creator, leaving it at the producers' discretion.

'You've got to take your personal hat off and put on your producer's hat, because what happened and it's not fair on the contestant not to show it,' Cowell later explained.

The reason for Simon's tears was very personal. His mother had died just some time prior to the audition, so Daniel's interpretation must have resonated with Cowell's own feelings.

The X Factor had always been the favorite show of Simon's mother, Julie, and that's what had driven him to go back to work so soon after her passing in July 2015. Little had he known, however, that one of the contestants would make him revisit the personal tragedy shortly after it happened.

Sadly, Josh Daniel didn't make it far on the show that season. He was eliminated after the Judges' Houses performances where he sang 'Style' by Taylor Swift, and his career never really took off after that. Nonetheless, his rendition of 'Jealous' peaked at #2 on the UK Top 40 chart.

Source: HuffPost, Loose Women.