It’s all been crazy, says Telford's X Factor star Ozzy

The 17-year-old wowed Simon Cowell and the 5,000-strong audience at his on-air audition with the Elvis Presley song Trouble.

Since the recorded episode was aired on Saturday he has been inundated with messages from wellwishers who took to social media networks Twitter and Facebook to praise his efforts.

“I’m not very good with tweets and things normally. But about 100 people messaged after the show. I stayed up all night replying to them all.

“Everywhere I go, I’m being recognised. People just walk up to me to speak to me which is nice of them,” he said.

And repying to a tweet from @wavexrly, he posted: “Thank you so much. They didn’t show too much but it’s still gone so crazy for me. Means a ridiculous amount reading these. Widest grin in the West Midlands right now!”

The former Burton Borough School pupil, from Horton, received a standing ovation and four “yeses” from the judges including Robbie Williams, his wife Ayda Field and One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson for his lively rendition of the Presley hit.

Numerous Shropshire Star readers also took to Facebook to comment on and share the story.

Nell Buchanan posted: “Thank goodness Telford’s on the map for something good. Fed up of of the usual bad stuff all the time.”

Ann Antwis posted: “Well done young man you were great good luck for your future Owen xxxxx.”

While Ann Moore added: “Well done Ozzy.”

Ozzy, who lists the king of rock ‘n roll, Robert Plant and Freddie Mercury among his musical idols, got through competitive backstage auditions earlier this year before being invited to sing at Wembley Arena after impressing the show’s producers. “I suppose it is exciting, but there is so much going on I haven’t been thinking about it too much,” he said.

“I didn’t tell my parents that I’d applied for the show and sent in a video for the online audition. I’d almost forgotten about it.

“I got through that, and they asked for my availability dates for when I could come back.

“We were actually on holiday in Crete when an email came to say that I needed to be in London the same day that we were due to fly back. So we landed at Manchester at 4am, came home, changed our clothes and set off for London straight away.

“We got there late at about 2pm, I went through the X Factor processing and did some filming with my family.

“I was the second to last person on. I didn’t get on stage to do my panel audition until about 11pm. I want to be a rock star one day, that’s my dream. That’s not being cocky and I know it’s a fine line, but that’s what I want to do.”

He is due to perform in the next round later in the series.