That was cruel. Why put the poor girl through that? The saved girl from the previous week is usually given her result quite early on and put out of her misery - especially when it is positive. On her birthday too! Poor Danielle.

I now feel really sorry for Lauren, reading some of the posts on here. I mean, if you're a naturally fairly musical small girl and singing for your mummy, would you not tell her you couldn't really hear the piano? I don't see how that's particularly bratty, it's just what you do. Same as you tell her if you can't reach something on a high shelf, or you can't read a word in your book. As others have said, her hearing problem has been up on the website since day 1 so I'm not really sure how it's Lauren's fault that now is the time someone chose to interview her about it. And in all fairness, she was pretty level headed about it, it was her mother who got emotional (and understandably so- I'm not a parent myself but I imagine going through something like that with your child must be fairly difficult). As for her thanking Charlotte for her compliments, what else was she supposed to say when being asked how the session went? We all saw Charlotte complimenting her very strongly in the VT, we've all heard her say in the shows that she thinks Lauren is vocally flawless, (and we've also seen Lauren disagreeing with her about that in the mission VT) so what was Lauren supposed to do or say? As for not being friendly with the other girls, I've said on another thread that I was at the show on Saturday night and Lauren was the one I noticed particularly as talking to all the other girls during the night and helping/ encouraging them. Honestly, I noticed in part because it surprised me as I was expecting her to be fairly cool and reserved.

I know that everyone will see things differently and sometimes you just don't take to a person for no apparent reason, but as I've felt with Emilie in the past, I think Lauren is getting a few unfairly harsh comments on here today for things that aren't really her fault.

^ I agree totally Franglemand

I respect Sheila's assessments - she knows her art in and out - but I was a little disappointed that this week instead of commenting on Emilie's performance she chose to dwell on last weeks tear - tears we didn't actually see because she shed them backstage.

I don't know whether this had any influence on the eventual outcome - but the comments the same week as we learned of Lauren's hearing problems, Jenny's past obesity, saw Steph's warm loving family and Stephanie's hilarious attempts at cooking could have had a negative result .

I don't think Emilie was destined for the final and I'm not crying fix! an unfortunate coincidence perhaps - and I still respect Sheila.

We actually did see Emilie's tears in last week's recap of the previous night, where all the girls are shown reacting to the judge's comments.

True Dave - but perhaps I didn't make my point clearly. Emilie held back until she was backstage and had it not been for the intrusion of the camera we wouldn't have seen them. She then dried her eyes and continued with the show - I think that took guts.

Ignazio, you are a long-term defender of Emilie against the vitriol she has had fired at her, and I commend you for it.

However they very clearly did show Emilie crying in response to the very negative comments from the judges the previous week and this was while she was still on stage. there was a very quick reaction shot which showed it clearly. . I know because I remember saying to my other half that they had almost certainly saved her by making her cry in response to teh comments.

I honestly didn't see it - but I apologise in advance if I was wrong.

Fair enough, yes. Just that you'd said we hadn't seen her tears. But I realise what you meant.