A SINGING pensioner who appeared in front of millions of viewers on TV talent show the X Factor was taken to hospital for eight days after his audition.

More than 9million people watched Maurice Siegel’s rendition of Tom Jones’s Delilah on Saturday night.

However despite his gaudy pink and blue satin shirt, he failed to impress any of the judges. The 76-year-old of Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff, even scared judge Dannii Minogue by poking out his extraordinarily long tongue.

Mr Siegel said the stress and pressure of the auditions, which were filmed in June, had now meant he was retiring from showbusiness.

He said: “That will be my last performance. Shortly afterwards I had a shooting pain in my left arm and I spent eight days in Southend-hospital.co.uk" target="_blank">Southend Hospital because of that performance.

“But even there they really loved me because I was giving out copies of my DVD, which features some of my songs, to patients in some of the hospital’s other wards.”

Mr Siegel told judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Cheryl Cole, and Danni, that his ambition was to be a worldwide superstar and he had about 500 female fans in Southend alone.

He added: “Women were shouting at me ‘We love you Maurice’ and Cheryl Cole was swooning all over me.”