Fans say X Factor icon ‘deserved better’ 13 years after controversial debut single

Unbelievably, it has been 13 years since Cher Lloyd blessed the charts with her song Swagger Jagger.

Hot off her X Factor stint, her debut single was an immediate hit and landed at number one in the charts despite some critics slamming it as ‘abominable’.

It was the lead single off Cher’s 2011 album Sticks and Stones, which she released after her fourth-place finish on the X Factor.

That year saw Matt Cardle take the winning spot and Rebecca Ferguson in second but most iconically One Direction took third place.

Cher’s catchy earworm took the tune of Oh My Darling, Clementine — an American folk ballad — and transformed it into an ego-heavy pop rap blend.

Even 13 years later, fans are still declaring that the then 16-year-old ‘deserved better’ than the future the X Factor afforded her.

‘Cher Lloyd deserved more,’ wrote Blake on X as Eddie added: ‘Sticks and Stones was really that album.’

Hyping up the track and comparing it to Sabrina Carpenter’s recent success, Reece Thompson said: ‘Should have been her Espresso.’

Fans on X were hyperbolically calling the track ‘one of the greatest songs of all time’ and ‘herstory’.

In the song, Cher sings about how someone is a ‘swagger jagger’ who should ‘get some of their own’.

The lyrics to the bridge are: ‘Hi hater, kiss kiss, I’ll see you later
Hi hater, it was very, very, very nice to meet you.’

Swagger Jagger played into the tough girl stand-offish persona manufactured on X Factor under Simon Cowell’s mentoring.

Her audition song Turn My Swag On by Soulja Boy painted this picture and throughout the show, this was leaned into with other tracks like No Diggity.

However, in 2020, Cher confessed she had to work very hard to overhaul her image afterwards as the British public had incredibly strong opinions on her.

‘I had no control over how I was being edited,’ she told The Guardian. ‘I think that affects me to this day – like, I’m always just a bit touchy about what I say.’

Cher continued: ‘What baffles me is that they created a character but then, after the show, expected me to be a fully fledged, respected artist. I had to do damage control. And still, I have to do damage control. Years later, I do have some anger towards people for doing that to me.’

She shared how someone came up to her and said she was nicer than they anticipated, due to her rowdy stage persona, which broke her heart.

In particular, Swagger Jagger became a sore spot for her with the now 31-year-old singer declaring it a ‘sad song’ which reminds her of being an angry and upset teenager.

Despite Cher’s views, clearly the song had a huge impact on the generation that grew up watching her on the X Factor.

Many regard her as an icon of the show and are still praising Swagger Jagger for ‘changing lives’ — although maybe not for the better in the songwriter’s case.

Now, the Malvern-born singer appears to feel differently about the track and performed it to thunderous applause at Mighty Hoopla this year.

Away from her music career, Cher married Craig Monk in 2013 and the couple share two children together, Delilah-Rae, 5, and Eliza Violet who was born in September.

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