Rebecca Ferguson worried that she'd be forgotten after finishing second to Matt Cardle in the 2010 X Factor final, she tells the BBC.
"You have to take a step back when you become the runner-up, and that's what I had to do," she said. "There was definitely a fear. I thought: 'Am I going to be forgotten?'"
Things weren't helped by the fact that Simon Cowell took almost six weeks to decide whether or not to sign the Liverpudlian 'songstress'.
In the end she signed a joint deal with Syco and Epic Records.
After a false start in the studio ("there was an assumption that maybe I wouldn't be the best writer. I'd arrive at the studios and the songs were already written for me") she claims to have drawn strength from her children and that having to support them gives her "the extra kick to stand up for myself".