Joe McElderry (b. 16 June 1991) is a pop singer from South Shields, England and the winner of Series 6 of the X Factor UK, which took place in 2009. He first auditioned in Manchester where he sang Luther Vandross’ 'Dance With My Father'. He was in the Boys group, mentored by Cheryl Cole. His vocals appear on the X Factor Finalists 2009 Charity single (a cover of Michael Jackson's You Are Not Alone) which reached number 1 status in the UK Charts on the 21st of November 2009. It remained there for one week, before being knocked off by Peter Kay's charity single for Children In Need. Joe won X Factor on December 13th 2009. His debut single, The Climb (A cover of the Miley Cyrus song) was released on December 14th 2009, and charted at number 2 - beaten by a anti-X Factor campaign backed Rage Against The Machine song, Killing In The Name. He was then number one on December 28th. The single had the fifth highest sales of all UK singles released in 2009 staying one week at #1. It was also the top selling Irish single of 2009 where it remained at the top spot for four consecutive weeks. "The Climb" was nominated in the British Single category at the 2010 BRIT Awards. In January 2010, he participated in the Helping Haiti charity single, a cover of "Everybody Hurts" arranged by Simon Cowell in order to raise money for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. He was also crowned the winner of the second series of Popstar to Operastar in 2011 and the first series of The Jump in 2014. In 2015, McElderry played the lead role of Joseph in the touring production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. To date he has released four top 20 albums – two of them reaching the UK top three. He was the first X Factor contestant to release a fourth album. As of 2014, McElderry has sold over 2 million records worldwide