X Factor winner Matt Cardle still speaks to mentor Dannii Minogue

X Factor winner Matt Cardle says he’s still in touch with former mentor Dannii Minogue.

However he appears to have taken a swipe at Simon Cowell after his time on the show.

Matt won the 2010 series of The X Factor, beating One Direction, Rebecca Ferguson and Cher Lloyd in the final.

Gearing up to release a new album, Matt said this week he still speaks to mentor Dannii.

“She’s been great ever since the show. She’s been supporting me,” he told ITV’s Lorraine.

But seemingly taking aim at her fellow judges at the time – Cheryl, Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell – Matt added: “She was one of, if not the only, mentor that took that role seriously.”

Matt’s new album Time To Be Alive is out now and follows the singer overcoming addiction to drink and drugs.

“I ran away from how I was feeling. That’s why [new album] Time To Be Alive is called Time To Be Alive,” he said. “It’s from being through rehab and talking about everything and realising you can’t run from the things that hurt – you have to face up to life.

“I was running away and that’s what got me at the end of the day.”

Earlier this year, he made a candid confession: “I got lucky on a number of occasions not to have been found f****** cold.”

Opening up to The Sun, Matt revealed there were a “number of times” that he ended up close to death.

Matt admitted he struggled to cope not long after his victory on The X Factor.

“I was being rejected left, right and centre for a record, for all of this kind of stuff,” Matt said. “I was still coming down hard from a place where I didn’t have a label, I didn’t really have any management at the time, I didn’t have a steady place.

“And none of it was bitterness, but it’s just frustration about my fall from grace.”