Derren Brown: 'Danyl deserves to win'

Rex Features

Derren Brown has said that he hopes Danyl Johnson wins this year's X Factor.

The illusionist, who appeared as a guest on last weekend's Xtra Factor, wrote on his official blog that he is a big fan of the singer.

Brown said: "Danyl is delightful. If he is at all cocky then he shares it with the other over-25s.

"All the contestants have been thrown into the same revolting world of instant celebrity that ruins so many, and they all deal with it according to their means.

"The older singers just seem to lap it up a little more. They are already acting like celebrities in a way that the younger ones are not."

He added: "Of course to a public that feels (probably wrongly) that they are creating these stars, there is something more endearing about the baffled humility of the younger contestants.

"Tricky as it certainly is, we should be able to allow the older chaps to enjoy their fame and the celebrity that we're supposedly handing them.

"It would be nice to enjoy it through them rather than resent it. We really don't own them."

Brown has previously written about his "love/hate infatuation" with The X Factor.