JLS: Louis Walsh's Rihanna Advice Was Career Turning Point

JLS believe that Louis Walsh’s advice to sing Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ in The X Factor semi-finals was a pivotal moment in their career.

The boys had initially been sceptical about performing the Rihanna anthem but it was only after their mentor Louis persuaded them that they agreed.

The stellar performance propelled them to the 2008 series final, but despite losing out to Alexandra Burke, their career soon took off.

Marvin Humes told In:Demand: “What Louis is very good at is selecting songs and he was always crucial to us getting through.

“He suggested to us doing Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ and at the time we were like ‘come on man that’s such a big hit, it’s a woman’s song, how are we going to pull it off?’ but that was the reason we went into the final because of that song.”** **

JLS also offered their own sage advice to anyone who is hoping to appear on The X Factor – make sure you get there early!

Aston Merrygold told us: “We turned up and we got in the right queue. There’s a group queue and there’s an individual queue and literally there were four groups.

“We got there at early doors at 6am and there were four acts in front of us so we were straight in, straight out.”

JLS’s career-spanning compendium ‘Goodbye - Greatest Hits’ is currently battling Robbie Williams for the album chart no.1 and their final UK tour kicks off next month.

Throughout their five-year career JLS scored four Top 3 albums, including their chart-topping, 1.4million selling self-titled debut, and five number one singles.