How It Happened: Michela Becomes Malta’s Eurovision Hopeful After Nail-Biting X Factor Final
It’s all come to an end! The first season of the X Factor Malta has just come to an end, Michela Pace has been crowned winner, and we’re all already excited for the second season to kick off.
Here’s a rundown of everything that happened during tonight’s crazy final show.
The final four covered Queen’s ‘The Show Must Go On’ to a roaring crowd, and Ben Camille did indeed make a dramatic entrance. I hope you all downed your drinks. The judges looked absolutely stunning in their suits and dresses, complete with shades and fedora from Ray and a dramatic Luke Azzopardi ball gown from Alex.
The finalists had to prepare four songs each…
The first song each finalist performed was a rehashing of their original audition song, which really allowed us to appreciate just how far they’ve come since the start of the show. Then we moved on to the duets, or as Ben called them ‘duwits’, starting with Petra who sang with her very own mentor Ray Mercieca .We were then blessed with a performance by the queen herself, Ira Losco, as she joined Owen on stage.
Obviously Howard didn’t get on the stage to join his acts, but that meant we were treated to two performances from some extra-talented outsiders, but not before Ira snuck in a quick outfit change. Nicole sang with ex-Red Electrick frontman Matthew James Borg, and Michela was joined by the Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja.
Petra was the first to go, following the first round of voting
Bringing the audience straight to their feet as they applauded her.
The third round brought us the Maltese classics, starting off with Owen who performed his version of Shazam’s “A?seb fit-Tifel”, allowing his talent to really shine through as he performed in Maltese for the first time. Nicole then covered an unpopular classic from Sammy Bartolo, ‘Kemm Hu Sabi?’. Michela then covered ‘Inti Djamant’ by The Tramps, which means we got at least one prediction right.
Nicole was eliminated next
Leaving Michela and Owen to battle it out for the crown in the ‘Super Sing-Off’.
The final and fourth round allowed Owen and Michela to sing a song that they felt showed off their abilities best. Owen performed one of his own original songs, and Michela sang ‘Shallow’ from A Star Is Born – a song she had previously performed on the show, and definitely shows off her vocal ability.
As the public decided who would win, Dalton Harris took to the stage
And he impressed us all with X Factor UK winning rendition of The Power of Love. But that got us to the moment of truth; we were about to find out who our winner was. the entire country held their breath while Ben Camille took a thirty-second-long dramatic pause before letting us know that Michela Pace was our winner!
And while that meant we had to say goodbye to Owen, this definitely is just the beginning of his career here in Malta.
So Michela will be representing Malta in Tel Aviv this May
As she takes part in the Eurovision, and she’s also been given a recording contract with Sony Italia – we can’t wait to see what the future has in store for this young star!