Life and career

Early life and career beginnings

Solomon was born in Dagenham, East London, the daughter of Fiona (née Nash), a nurse, and David Solomon, a photographer. Her father is from a Jewish family that had emigrated to Britain from Iraq and Poland. Her mother was born into a Church of England family (the daughter of a vicar), and had converted to Judaism before marrying Stacey's father. Her parents divorced when she was nine. She attended King Solomon High School.

2009-10: The X Factor

In 2009, Solomon auditioned for the sixth series of The X Factor, performing "What a Wonderful World". Solomon was among the top 12 contestants and advanced to the live shows and was mentored by Dannii Minogue. During the first week of the live shows she performed Coldplay's "The Scientist", which gained positive reviews from the judges. During week two, she performed "At Last", receiving the most public votes. She sang "When You Wish Upon a Star" during the third week. On the fourth week, all contestants had to sing rock songs; Minogue selected "Somewhere Only We Know", and Solomon's performance resulted in positive reviews. On the fifth week, she sang "Son of a Preacher Man". The sixth week into the competition, Solomon sang Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever". During the sixth week, she also released a cover of Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone", which topped the charts on the UK Singles Chart and the Irish Singles Chart On the seventh week, she performed "I Can't Make You Love Me" and again received positive reviews from the judges and the audience. In the eighth week of the competition Solomon performed "Rule the World" by Take That and "Something About the Way You Look Tonight" by Elton John. In the semi-final she performed another Michael Jackson song, "The Way You Make Me Feel", and the song "Somewhere" for which she received a standing ovation again by the judges. During the final week, Solomon performed a duet "Feeling Good" with Michael Bublé. She also performed "What a Wonderful World" and "Who Wants to Live Forever". Solomon was awarded third place in the competition, behind Joe McElderry and Olly Murs.

Solomon went on tour with the her fellow X Factor finalists. In December 2010, she returned to the show, where she presented the show from Essex for winner, Matt Cardle.

2011-present: Debut album, Young Voices choir

In June 2011, Solomon began working on her debut album, due to be released in 2012. Her first single from the album was originally to be released in February, but was delayed. Solomon later stated it was because she wanted to focus on her family and new baby. On 5 November 2011, Solomon performed to thousands as the headline act at Paisley's Christmas Lights Switch On event. In September 2011, it was reported that Solomon was in a bidding war between record labels. However, she stated that she will have complete control. She was also asked to join The Only Way Is Essex, but turned it down.

On 18 December 2011, Solomon released a cover of Chris Rea's "Driving Home for Christmas" as her Christmas single. The single was used for the Iceland Christmas commercial and reached number 27 in the UK Singles Chart. In June 2012, she revealed that she recorded a number of singles with an album planned in September 2012. However, on The Jonathan Ross Show in October 2012, she stated she was in the process of finishing the album, and was looking to release it in February 2013. On 21 September 2013, during an appearance on Through the Keyhole, she stated that her debut album would now be released sometime in November 2013 and would contain mainly new material.

On 29 November 2013, Solomon was announced as the headline artist to lead a choir of over 110,000 primary school children. She joined the Young Voices tour, which took place from 14 January to 5 February 2014 in Birmingham, Sheffield, London and Manchester. The singer performed tracks from her forthcoming debut album on the tour, scheduled for release in 2014.

In 2015 she wrote a book called 'Walk On By'.

In 2015, Solomon played a seagull in the UK version of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

Television

Solomon took part in the tenth series of the reality show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! She beat Shaun Ryder in the final and was crowned "Queen of the Jungle". She gained 80.07% of the public votes. In April 2011, she presented Sing If You Can on ITV with Keith Lemon, which raised money for the Teenage Cancer Trust. She performed the British national anthem at the 2011 FA Cup Final, between Manchester City and Stoke City at Wembley Stadium. In 2011, she became the face of supermarket Iceland, taking over from Coleen Nolan. Solomon performed a duet with Ryder at the 16th National Television Awards - "Feeling Good" and "Step On" by Happy Mondays. In October 2010, she won the Living TV show Party Wars.

In October 2011, Solomon appeared on the ITV quiz show All Star Family Fortunes with her family, where she took on soap star Danny Miller and his family in order to win the cash jackpot of £30,000. Solomon beat Miller and went on to win £10,000 for their chosen charity.

In December 2011, Solomon appeared on BBC quiz show Celebrity Mastermind achieving a score of 10 points - the lowest in the competition. Solomon chose the TV series The Inbetweeners as her chosen specialist subject.

Since 2011, Solomon has appeared on the BBC panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks four times. These appearances resulted in critical acclaim due to her 'gleefully loopy' performance.

From 11 March 2012, Solomon and Chris Moyles presented Sky Living's dating show The Love Machine . In Spring 2012, Solomon starred in an episode of Mad Mad World on ITV with Eamonn Holmes and Stephen K. Amos.

From 5 September 2012, Solomon was part of the judging panel for ITV2's Top Dog Model.

From February 2015, Solomon took part in the second series of The Jump and was eliminated on 4 February.

On 24 March 2015, Solomon appeared on BBC Radio 1's Innuendo Bingo.

Personal life

At the age of 17, Solomon became pregnant by her then-boyfriend, Dean Cox. The couple split up some time before the birth of their son, Zachary, on 21 March 2008. In 2012, Solomon gave birth to her second son Leighton with then-fiance Aaron Barnham.

It was announced in January 2016 that she has been in a relationship with former King of the Jungle, Joe Swash since November 2015.

Discography

Studio albums

Title	Details	Peak chart positions
		UK
Shy	Released: 18 April 2015 Format: Digital download, CD Label: Conehead Records	45

Singles

As lead artist

Year	Title	Peak chart positions		Album
		UK	SCO
2011	"Driving Home for Christmas"	27	41	N/A
2015	"Shy"	—	—	Shy
"—" denotes a single that did not chart or was not released.

As featured artist

Year	Title	Peak chart positions			Album
		UK	IRE	SCO
2009	"You Are Not Alone" (as part of The X Factor finalists)	1	1	1	N/A

[ Source: Wikipedia ]