Cheryl Fernandez-Versini alienated herself from the X Factor audience on Friday night when she made the controversial choice to swap out her selected singing hopeful at the last minute.

After first giving a place in the house to Chloe O’Gorman to much booing from the crowd, Cheryl shocked both the judges and audience by taking away her seat and giving it to the previously rejected Chloe Jasmine.

Cheryl told the elated Chloe that she's made a “huge mistake”.

“I want versatility in my group going forward. If I had six girls who all represented the same thing, it would be boring.”

“I want somebody that can do something different each week, you have that for me, and I'm missing that when I look up there.”

Now it seems like Cheryl's sudden change of heart was due to meddling from X Factor producers.

“Cheryl had axed Chloe despite Simon Cowell begging her to keep her,” an unnamed source told the Mirror.”

“It was only after the producers went to see Cheryl that she suddenly changed her mind.”

“The mood in the audience was already pretty toxic and after that it looked like there was going to be a riot. Tensions were high.”

Hmmm… very intriguing. The next episode is tonight on ITV at 8pm, we'll have to tune and see what happens next!