The first season of the American version of the music competition show The X Factor began airing on Fox on September 21, 2011.
[1] The show was hosted by Welsh TV presenter Steve Jones, while the original judging panel consisted of Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Paula Abdul and L.A. Reid.
Cole later departed from the show after just two audition rounds and was replaced by Nicole Scherzinger, who originally co-hosted with Jones.
An early preview of The X Factor aired during the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 12, 2011.
Season one's finale aired on December 22, 2011, resulting in Melanie Amaro as the winner, and Simon Cowell as the winning mentor.
[2] Eventually, Grammy Award-winning record executive, songwriter, and record producer L.A. Reid,[3][4] The X Factor UK judge Cheryl Cole,[5][6] and Cowell's former American Idol colleague Paula Abdul[7][8] Numerous people were speculated to host the series, including High School Musical star Corbin Bleu and The X Factor UK host Dermot O'Leary.
[9] On May 8, 2011, Nicole Scherzinger and Welsh presenter Steve Jones were announced as co-hosts of the show.
[14] On August 5, 2011, Cowell announced that the reason why Cole left was because he gave her the option to be a judge on the 2011 series of the UK show as he felt that she would have been comfortable there.
[23] Day one of boot camp started with dance training with choreographer Brian Friedman and then the acts were called to the stage in groups of 10 to sing in front of the judges.
He informed them that they would be put into "ensembles" and groups, and would be working with stylists, choreographers, and vocal coaches.
Next, they showed a couple of quick shots of some ensembles, presumably consisting of all people that would not make it through to the end.
[24] In the United States, footage from judges' houses was originally scheduled to air on October 12, 13 and 18.
Melanie Amaro was initially eliminated from the Girls' category, but was invited back to the competition after Cowell decided he had made a mistake in not including her, bringing the total number of contestants to 17.
[27] The top seventeen acts were confirmed as follows; Key: The first two-and-a-half hour live show aired on a special Tuesday time slot on October 25; which followed the same format as the 2011 series of the UK show with each of the judges narrowing their number of acts down to three, without a public vote.
The final featured performances from Justin Bieber, Leona Lewis, 50 Cent, Stevie Wonder, Pitbull and Ne-Yo.
The Pepsi Choice Group performance was chosen by the audience and included circus outfits along with a rotating stage and laser special effects in a hip-hop dance style.
[34] Michael Jackson's mother, Katherine; his three children Prince, Paris, and Blanket; and his brothers Marlon, Tito, and Jackie were present in the audience during the performance show.
Originally, the second song was going to be chosen by the public as part of the Pepsi Challenge,[51][52] however, due to technical problems that happened with the Pepsi Challenge the night before the performance show, that feature was delayed to the semi-final and executive producers told that the contestants had only 24 hours to choose another song.
The semi-final did not feature a final showdown and instead the act with the fewest public votes, Canty, was automatically eliminated.
While Scherzinger was deliberating, she wanted the public vote to decide the outcome that week and sent the result to deadlock.
[94] Scherzinger was let go at the end of the season and later relocated to the United Kingdom to be a judge on the 2012 series of the UK show to replace Kelly Rowland.