'X Factor' 2016 Contestant Saara Aalto Reveals She Left Boyfriend For Female Superfan

’X Factor’ contestant Saara Aalto has told of how she left her boyfriend of nine years to begin a relationship with a female fan.

The talent show hopeful, who landed a place in the final 12 last weekend following Sharon Osbourne’s Judges’ Houses, opened up to The Sun about how she dumped famous Finnish singer Teemu Roivainen to date fan Meri Sopanen, who she is now engaged to.

Explaining how they met, Saara revealed: “I was in The Voice of Finland in 2012 and my girlfriend watched the show, liked me a lot and sent me a fan message through Facebook.

“She wrote, ‘I have never, ever sent a message like this to anybody, but I just had this intuition that I have to send this to you.’ I was like, ‘That’s so cute’, and thought, ‘What a nice-looking girl.’”

However, it was a year before the pair met, when Meri came to one of Saara’s concerts, where she said they “started talking and realised [we] just shared the same view of life.”

The couple have since been together for two years, and announced their engagement earlier this summer.

Saara also revealed that she has remained on good terms with Teemu, and the trio are actually the best of friends.

“He just loves my fiancée. We are like one happy family. It is a dream,” she said.

“We started dating when I was 15 and we fell in love and we still love each other. But when you grow, you get older and I realised that I would prefer being with a girl. Me and Teemu still love each other like a brother and sister.”

Saara previously caused outrage among ‘X Factor’ fans when her extensive experience as a recording artist was uncovered, following her first audition.

As well as finishing second on ‘The Voice Finland’, she has an impressive discography and also attempted to represent her home country at Eurovision in 2011 and 2015.

An ‘X Factor’ spokesperson later played down the controversy, telling the Daily Mail: “Anyone can apply for ‘The X Factor’ whether they are professional or amateur, irrespective of their past experience and all contestants are auditioned on merit.

“Saara mentioned during her audition that she had been singing for a while but hadn’t yet had the break she had been looking for.”

Saara will be taking on ‘Let It Go’ from the film ‘Frozen’ as the live shows kick off this weekend.

‘The X Factor’ airs on Saturday (8 October) and Sunday at 8pm on ITV.