Where Is the 57-Year-Old First Winner of 'The X Factor' Now? Life After the Show — Latest Unrecognisable Photos Spark Buzz

The first winner of "The X Factor" is back in the headlines — and photos showing how dramatically he has changed since his glory days have left fans doing a double take. Scroll down to see for yourself.

He posted a simple selfie from what looked like a home recording studio — bald, bearded, and smiling serenely into the camera — with a caption that was equal parts self-deprecating and defiant.

"Yes I have aged 21 years not particularly well. But at least I have aged," he quipped.

The internet, predictably, had thoughts.

"I refuse to believe that's you. It's AI stop [expletive]🤣," one sceptical follower fired back. "Why do you need to defend ageing? We're all on the same pathway," another reflected philosophically.

Not everyone was so detached. "You look happy and healthy and you're all natural that's the main thing😉," one supporter wrote warmly.

"You look good..glad you haven't got hair plugs and Turkey teeth..you look absolutely lovely..were you fishing for compliments?🤔😂 [sic]," another teased — to which the man in question replied, simply, "Haha no."

And then, less kindly, someone dug up an old photo and jabbed, "Bro what happened [sic]."

The man prompting all of this? Steve Brookstein — the soul singer who, back in December 2004, won over six million public votes to become the very first champion of Simon Cowell's "The X Factor".

When Brookstein, then 35, claimed the crown on the debut series of what would become one of Britain's most-watched talent shows, the promise was dazzling: a million-pound recording contract, stardom, a new Robbie Williams.

His first single, a cover of Phil Collins' 1984 classic "Against All Odds", soared straight to number one in the UK. His debut album, "Heart And Soul", followed suit.

But within just nine months, it was over. His record deal with Cowell's label was terminated before he had released a second single, and he walked away without a penny. His name swiftly became a byword for humiliating celebrity failure, and the press gleefully reminded him of that fact at every turn.

Brookstein has long maintained he was the victim of a coordinated effort to bury him — pointing the finger at Cowell, PR man Max Clifford, and a hostile press that was all too willing to play along.

He accused Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh of planting malicious stories and claimed Cowell told Clifford to "bury him" after he refused to be controlled. "They're not there to protect me, they're there to protect their brand," he said in a 2014 Guardian interview promoting his memoir, "Getting Over the X".

The media, he argued, made him look like a bitter, angry loser no matter what he said or did. Some observers, reading the memoir, felt it rather proved their point.

The book was candid to a fault — touching on a traumatic experience of abuse he suffered at 14, his struggles with trust, and his complicated feelings about the music industry. It sold quietly, almost surprisingly unmentioned by most tabloids.

In the years since, Brookstein has been outspoken in his contempt for the show that made and broke him, arguing that it reduced music to little more than the spectacle of professional wrestling — all theatre, no artistry.

Two decades on, Brookstein — now 57 and living in Scotland with his wife Eileen Hunter, whom he married in 2006, and their two children, Hamish and Esme — has carved out a modest but steady life in music.

He performs intermittently at small venues, delivering soulful sets of covers that showcase the gravelly voice that won the nation over all those years ago.

In October 2024, he was photographed performing at The Courtyard — a converted farmhouse pub in rural Morpeth, Northumberland — sporting a baker boy cap and thick-framed glasses, looking, as one report put it, "vastly different" from his pop star heyday.

He has also played at Esher Theatre in Surrey alongside 90s boyband East 17. A February 2025 gig in Verwood, Dorset was cancelled due to ill health after he lost his voice, though his agent confirmed he planned to return to performing and hinted at new music on the horizon.

Off the stage, Brookstein has never gone quietly either, and social media has given him a platform that no label can take away. This week, he made headlines again after BBC Radio 2 breakfast host Scott Mills was sacked from the corporation.

Brookstein retweeted a post he had originally written back in November 2013, in which he accused Mills of mocking him on air alongside fellow "X Factor" winner James Arthur. His accompanying message? "Sad to hear Scott Mills has been sacked. I don't hold a grudge but I remember names."

He later added his own conspiratorial gloss to the Mills saga, writing:

"Scott Mills has been thrown under the bus to remind the British MPs who they work for. The Epstein class."

Whatever one makes of his theories, one thing is certain: Steve Brookstein has never stopped making noise — and at 57, he shows absolutely no sign of starting now.

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