CONTROVERSIAL X FACTOR SINGER Katie Waissel may face ejection from the TV series after it was discovered that she has continued her US recording career, apparently without the knowledge of the show’s bosses.

Waissel – who has previously recorded as an easy listening singer in the United States under the name ‘Lola Fontaine’ – has contributed vocals to a song on David Reed’s album ‘The Private Life of David Reed’, which The Sun reports was released last week.

Reed is signed to Chamberlain Records, as was ‘Fontaine’ – until, the newspaper reports, the show’s producers spent thousands buying her out from the remainder of her contract in order to bank on her merchandising abilities as one of the UK show’s finalists.

As a result of the team’s spending, Waissel was understood to have cut all ties with her US label – claims which seem to have been undermined by the continuing release of her material by the label.

A spokesman for The X Factor admitted to the newspaper that the show was “unaware of this [the new release] until today”, and is now expected to investigate whether the release of previous material – with Waissel’s contribution to the duet ‘Moving Mountains’ almost certainly recorded before she left the label – is in contravention of their deal, and whether Waissel was aware of the impending release.

The furore has also seen versions of the song earlier uploaded to YouTube removed from the site.

Survival

Waissel survived her fourth experience in the show’s ‘bottom two’ in just six weeks last night, with Aiden Grimshaw booted out after a judges’ vote was deadlocked and the earlier public vote was taken into account.

The rumours of her ongoing US career – and apparent unpopularity in the UK – have led to some speculation that Waissel will flee Britain once her involvement in the show has ended, though the singer herself has denied such rumours on Twitter.

She wrote:

I have to laugh,apparently now i’m ‘fleeing’ to the US!c’mon give us a break!! Stop writing all this nonsense!!it hurts!!