Robbie Williams has revealed he has a significant bet with Louis Tomlinson on whose category will perform better on The X Factor.
The judges have said they are both backing their contestants to win on the competition show after they learned who they will be mentoring.
Williams, who will be in charge of the groups, told his hopefuls: “I have got quite a bit of money with Louis Tomlinson, that he thinks that his acts are going to get further than my acts. That’s not going to happen.”
The last two days have been proper fun and giving me even more confidence in my category. Judges houses is gonna be full of great vocals!
— Louis Tomlinson (@Louis_Tomlinson) September 21, 2018
The One Direction star will mentor the boys, while Williams’s wife Ayda Field Williams will mentor the overs and Simon Cowell will mentor the girls.
After meeting her group, Field Williams told them: “What the boys don’t know is I am the most competitive member on that panel,” while Cowell said: “This is the best girls category we’ve had for a long, long time.”
It comes after the judging panel whittled the 130 hopefuls that made it through auditions down to 60, who will go on to compete in the Six Chair Challenge.
It was previously revealed that the bootcamp stage of the competition has been eliminated for this series.
The final round of auditions saw Thomas Pound, 20, sail through to the next round after stunning the judges with his two performances.
Take a FIRST look at tonight's #XFactor contestants ahead of our final weekend of Auditions! 🤩 https://t.co/fyvaekl8vD pic.twitter.com/acF74rVQ7H
— The X Factor (@TheXFactor) September 22, 2018
The cleaner from South Wales gave the panel a rendition of Tina Turner’s Simply The Best before he was sent away by Cowell, who said he would rather see him perform as his drag queen alter ego.
Pound later returned to perform Turner’s hit Proud Mary, dressed up as Lady Frieda Wilde.
After the performance, Cowell told him: “Thomas, or Lady Frieda, you’ve got balls.
“I loved the fact someone took the advice, it could have gone horribly wrong but people loved it. Whether you’re Lady Frieda or Thomas Pound, I don’t care because both of you have got a yes.”
Family gospel group ATTY, from Birmingham, also landed a place in the next stage after impressing with their performance of the Shawn Mendes song Mercy.
After receiving a standing ovation from the judges, Tomlinson told them: “The unity you have, we can feel it.”
Williams added: “I feel what you’ve got, it’s really powerful.”
Earlier in the episode, Field Williams revealed her husband broke her heart by breaking up with her three times before the couple got married and had children.
She spoke about the devastation she felt while listening to 18-year-old Chloe Jane McAllister, from Northern Ireland, sing Jessie Ware’s Say You Love Me.
She says: “Rob put me through some, Rob dumped me three times. What a bad man, I know we’re all thinking it.”
After watching her performance, she added: “I thought that was amazing and I felt the heartbreak.
“In fact I felt it so much that Rob will be sleeping on the couch tonight because it made me remember what an awful human he was to me.”
Williams also said the performance stirred up strong emotions for him, telling McAllister: “I’ve got a daughter and her name is Theodora Rose Williams and she’s five years old and she is my life and I go to piano lessons with her every Friday and I was thinking about you being that same person and learning your craft.
“I want to show the person who means the most to me in the world exactly what they can achieve when they put their mind to it and they practice because you’re the person I want my daughter to be like.”
The couple celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary in August and also have a son, Charlton.
Earlier this month they revealed they have welcomed a third child, a daughter given birth via surrogate, named Coco.
The X Factor continues next Saturday on ITV at 8.35pm.