The successful auditionees chosen by the producers were then invited back to the last set of auditions that took place in front of the judges and a live studio audience during May and June.

[10] The grand final decider was watched by 1.99 million people, making it the highest rated television episode of the season.

[13] When speaking of her role as a judge, Bassingthwaighte said she would focus on bringing an honest critique to the show and would guide "the artists through the competition".

[18] The successful auditionees chosen by the producers were then invited back to the last set of auditions that took place in front of the judges and a live studio audience.

[23][24] On the second day, the Boys each had to sing a song made famously by a female artist, the Over 25s got styled for a photo shoot and later each had to perform one song, the Girls had to perform choreography to either Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" or Lady Gaga's "Born This Way", and the Groups held recording sessions with vocal producer Erana Clark.

Guest performers: The Fray ("Heartbeat"),[66] Luke O'Dell ("Introvert Extrovert"),[1] Guy Sebastian ("Don't Worry Be Happy")[66] and Kylie Minogue ("I Should Be So Lucky")[66] Three days before the season's premiere, Mel B made comments about the other judges, labelling them dishonest and boring.

'"[8] During a radio interview with The Kyle and Jackie O Show on 29 August 2011, Bassingthwaighte responded to Mel B's comments saying, "I think it's in fun – I hope so otherwise she deserves a slap.

[9] Sebastian told Callaway: "You've got to have the right attitude to this competition, you've got to be focused and to be honest, not be rude to people and have the work ethic.

For you to not learn your lyrics and for you to at times be rude to crew, you really have to pull that in and rein that in because you won't last long in this competition or this industry if you do that.

I feel Mitchell did the best performance that he's done so far, I think Guy made the mistake of commenting on stuff that didn't happen on camera.

[69] The Seven Network insiders revealed that a clash between Callaway and another contestant, Declan Sykes, was the real reason behind Sebastian's on-air rebuke.

[10] Contestant Emmanuel Kelly appeared on the first episode of the season's audition show on 29 August 2011, and performed a rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine".

[70] Kelly and his brother came from Iraq, where they were abandoned at an orphanage and both suffered limb deficiencies as a result of chemical warfare.

[71] Emmanuel Kelly appeared and gave an inspirational performance (speech and song) at the UN Youth Dialogue on 30 May 2018.

After failing to impress the judges with his rendition of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone", O'Dell then sang an original song he wrote titled, "Introvert Extrovert", which made him an overnight internet sensation.

[72] The song entered the iTunes' Top 100 chart overnight and landed O'Dell thousands of fans on social media and his official YouTube channel.

[73] Overnight commentary on Twitter and Facebook quickly labelled O'Dell as the Australian version of Rebecca Black, who found fame with her song, "Friday".

[76] The live grand final decider show on 22 November 2011, was the highest rated episode of the third season with 1,998,000 viewers.