Here’s what former X Factor finalist Frankie Cocozza is up to now as he heads onto Celebs Go Dating.
Frankie appeared on The X Factor back in 2011, making it through to the live shows.
However he ended up quitting half way through the competition amid claims he had taken drugs.
So six years on, where is Frankie now?
According to a chat with The Daily Mirror, he’s mixing cement for £7.50 an hour after ‘blowing £200,000’ following The X Factor.
“I have no regrets,” he told the tabloid. “I performed on live TV in front of 14 million and that’s such a great thing to tell people. I didn’t have to have a real job for a long time after the show, and me and my mates had the best time.”
He added: “Now I love being on the building site. I get so much grief, but its a crease up. I knock up pug (mortar mix) for the plasterers. It’s fun. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning.”
Last year, Frankie spoke out over his axe from The X Factor over claims of drug taking.
“It all happens so quick. And then it just snowballed – you really don’t have a second to think about it,” he recalled of his time on the show. “I wasn’t ready. No, not a chance. I knew I wasn’t going to win the show. I had accepted that.”
He told ITV’s This Morning: “I was doing pony, I was doing songs that I didn’t want to do. I was doing exactly what was asked of me.
“Sometimes, I was the only one allowed to go out. They’d give me the nod, ‘We’ve got you VIP’. So I’d turn up and there’d be cameras everywhere…”
Chatting to hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, Frankie continued: “With the whole cocaine thing, there was no proof – I don’t know why they decided to release that when they said they wouldn’t in the last meeting [we had].
“All it was was me admitting it, so I said, ‘Will everyone find out?’ and they said, ‘No’. And then on the way home, it was all over the papers. [But] I held my hands up, I’ve got to leave.”
Frankie went on to explain he was now writing his own music and concluded: “I do regret letting people down.”
As well as his music and building work, Frankie will be seen on E4’s Celebs Go Dating from Monday night at 10PM as he searches for love.