Janet Devlin: Beyond The X Factor

Singer songwriter Janet Devlin on horses, Russell Crowe and the equestrian walk of shame. By Katie Gilmour.

It’s hard to reconcile the confident, accomplished young woman that fills my laptop screen with the shy, whimsical 16-year-old that filled my television screen in 2011. Gone is the fiery red hair, and the hesitant smile. The woman in front of me smiles widely, talks openly and passionately. Her complexion is flawless and my first impression is that the 29-year-old version of Janet Devlin is a woman that you cannot keep down.

Devlin is not a woman that you can pigeon hole, either. The music she has produced since leaving The X Factor, having earned fifth place and a spot on the tour, is varied. From haunting cover versions of rock classics to her own compositions and now, to country music.

Her voice has gained strength, and its easy to go down a rabbit hole investigating the many videos and clips online from Devlin’s discography. She’s moved with the times; she’s amassed a huge following on TikTok, You Tube and Instagram and shares her battles with mental health openly. Her content is funny, engaging and it makes you want to be her friend. Even more so when you discover that she has a genuine love for horses, and there’s nothing that bonds horse women more than chatting about horses; something that Devlin loves to do.

But it hasn’t been an easy ride for Devlin. Already battling an eating disorder and self-harming before The X Factor, she developed an addiction to alcohol fuelled by the loneliness being a celebrity brought her. She speaks openly in her documentary, Janet Devlin: Young, Female and Addicted, about her suicide attempts and her journey to sobriety. Now diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and bipolar, I get that the sense that the woman in front of me truly knows herself.

The years prior to The X Factor, I’d already suffered with eating disorders and self harming. The X Factor producers didn’t know [I’d suffered with an eating disorder and self harming]; they only accepted me because they thought I was wise for my years. I was like, ‘Yes, that’s the trauma.’ You meet a child that’s been through stuff, and they are very mature. They have to be, and that’s where I was. The show didn’t affect me psychologically that much, solely because I’d already had worse stuff happening before I did TV.”

“After the show, I didn’t know I had BPD, bipolar 2 and ADHD, and all of that chaos and the universe not playing ball was hard. I always get asked would you change anything, and I don’t think I would. I learned so much through all of the awful things: the eating disorder, being an alcoholic and a drug addict, and experiencing awful things in the industry, like being robbed of all my money at one point, and all of those things happened and if anything, I am resilient and stubborn and it set a benchmark where I can say, I got through that and I think I can get through sending this email.”

Devlin’s self-reflection crops up intermittently throughout our conversation, but there’s no sense of self-pity or self-indulgence; more a desire to understand and keep moving forwards.

I still feel like the 16-year-old girl sometimes,” Devlin says. “I sometimes get nervous [performing]. But I guess it’s like exposure therapy: You survived last time, you’ll survive again. I do get the excitement and the fear, and I tell myself that excitement and fear are very close in the brain – I’m not scared, I’m just excited. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

I think one of the most useful things I got from horse riding is that even if you’re afraid and scared, you can’t tell your body,” She continued, a keen rider since she was a child. “Because if you tell your body, you tell the horse and then he stops, and you have to say, ‘Oh, that was me’. It’s the same as a singer; you can’t let yourself tense up.”

Horses have been a big part of Devlin’s life since she was very young.

I took every single book out of the library about horses, I watched every single show: I was obsessed. I started learning to ride at 10, and within three months I was jumping and within six months I had my own pony and within two months of that I was competing [in show jumping]. It was the first time in my life that I did something, and was just good at it.”

Devlin’s face lights up when she talks about horses, particularly her first horse.

A My first pony was called Spangle, and never to this day have I met a horse more trustworthy. She was such a lovely horse. She was just the best. I competed her for a couple of years, and the first time I saw my Dad cry was the day we sold her.”

Devlin took a break from riding post The X Factor, but returned to the sport a year ago. She is sharing a Chestnut TB mare, and riding at a private yard in London, where they keep Shires, Andalusians and Fresian horses.

I had to make a choice before going on TV: Do you pursue the horses or do you sell the horses and pursue the music thing? At the time, I had one day off a week to do my homework. I had Saturday school, I was a sporty kid, I was horse riding… I never stopped. So when I went to TV Land, I was used to that ‘we’re going, we’re going: We don’t rest, we just go’.”

Anyone who has been a 16-year-old girl knows how hard it is to be a 16-year-old girl, let alone having the general public say, ‘Yeah – you did look fat today and yeah – your voice did sound rubbish today.’ I found those people easier to relate to though, because at the time, I really didn’t like myself at all. I wasn’t even really shy either, the reason I came across as shy was that I didn’t really think I had anything to offer in a conversation.

“It [the shyness] all stemmed from that place, so whenever people gave me abuse – and I was also dating a really toxic guy at the time who also gave me abuse – to someone who really doesn’t like themselves. you think ‘Oh thank god,’ because you think they see the truth. So whenever people would hate on me, I’d think, ‘You don’t even get it: I agree.’”

“It was just tough,” Devlin continues. “I did struggle. I didn’t have the horses anymore, and they were my therapy, so I ended up getting medicated. I asked for help, and I was in Harley Street the next day. At that point, I’d made it onto the tour. I went on the radio asking people not to vote for me because the other girls did a better performance. It was very different from my life of living in the middle of nowhere, unknown and then suddenly everyone knew who I was.”

Bringing horses back into her life has been good for Devlin. As a child, she successfully competing in show jumping, but riding now is very much for fun.

Currently I have a good thing going: I’m sharing one horse during the week – a 15.3 chestnut TB mare. She’s more bombproof than most people, and I ride her in an indoor [school], which is good for work, as I can go straight to work after and not be a drowned rat. But I also put an ad up to say I was looking for a share and I stumbled on a gold mine. The yard’s groom replied and they have Shires, Fresians and Andalusians and I get to just gallivant around the streets of London on these horses.”

Sounds fun? Like any equestrian, Devlin understands that horses are great levellers. None more so than 18.3hh Shire Ollie, who wasn’t so cooperative in filming content with her.

I was filming content the other day, and all I wanted was an over-the-ear shot cantering over the woods. As we were approaching where I was going to film, this woman with a wagon and three children appeared. Now, I was getting the heebie jeebies and I’m a human! I can’t imagine what was going through his [Ollie’s] brain, with that and the smell of fires and barbecues…

“They were standing still as statues, but the closer we got, the deeper his breathing. I know he takes his confidence from his rider, so I was like, ’It’s okay, let’s go, let’s go..’ and it was all fine until it wasn’t. In a feat of agility for a Shire horse, he spun round and bolted. And my legs were stuck out in front of me as I was yanking him in. This is 120lb me against 2000lb Ollie. I wasn’t panicking at all, thinking he’s worth more than any savings I’ve ever had! Eventually, I managed to get off him and I did the equestrian walk of shame home. That yard are so lovely; the rule is: treat them as your own, but if you fall, you have to buy cake.”

Janet didn’t fall, and she didn’t have to buy cake, but the incident happened so quickly that she couldn’t even film an outtake!

Isn’t that the rule of being an equestrian? It doesn’t matter what happens, as long as somebody is filming!” she quips.

“I’m trying to be sensible,” she says with a wry grin when I ask if she’ll buy a horse again. “It’s so hard; do I buy a property in Ireland, or do I buy a horse? I saw a good video the other day of a girl saying you always need to put money aside for an emergency, and the next slide is the horse in the field and her saying there’s my emergency money.”

Keeping Devlin off the subject of horses isn’t easy, especially when, like her, I’d rather just talk about horses too. We move onto her music and her charity work. Before we spoke, I watched many of her You Tube videos and her repertoire is varied. A particularly spine tingling version of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing is now on my playlist. Devlin has written with Newton Faulkner, Jack Savoretti, Lauren Aquilina, Ben Earle and David Sneddon and collaborated on tracks with Gareth Emery, Schiller, Leo Stannard and Engelbert Humperdinck.  

It’s really difficult to say [who has influenced me the most] because the influence comes from what I grew up listening to. I was the youngest for four kids and we had cousins who babysat us. They had very different music tastes. My whole family loved country music, and I can remember going to show jumping competitions at the weekend and my brother would burn me a new CD to listen to in the car. One brother loved rap, another pop and one country, my babysitter liked heavy rock so I had an early exposure to a lot of different music. It’s a complete melting pot of different genres. I grew up with all different types of music so there are no rules for me.”

“The album I’ve just recorded has different styles of country on it, then there are a few curveballs that I don’t know what to do with,’ she continued. “There’s three songs that aren’t country, but were recorded in Nashville. The thing I love the most is story telling. If a song tells a story, I’ll love it.”

Devlin’s latest single Emotional Rodeo is a catchy, upbeat country song. It’s an autobiographical track written about Deveins own experience of Borderline Personality Disorder.

The title came to me because it sums me up with BPD. It’s hard to describe to people [what BPD is like], because you sound like a special snowflake. I don’t want to be a special snowflake. It feels like you were born without the extra layer of skin that everyone else has. It makes you so sensitive, and you feel everything in a way that nobody else does. If I get sad, it’s like the world was ending. Even if it’s a minor thing, it would send me into an episode.”

“With BPD, you lose emotional permanence, so every time I felt sad, it would feel like the first time I’d ever been sad. So, think back to your first break up compared to your second. I don’t have that [ability to compare] so when a bad thing happened, I truly thought the world was ending. You also have the quick cycle of emotions; so on medication, I would go from a 4 to a 7 [out of ten] in a day, whereas, with BPD, you can go 0 to 10 multiple times in a day. It just means that you’re always emotionally exhausted every single day.”

“I didn’t realise how bad it was until I was medicated every day,” Devlin shares candidly. “I’ve hit a sweet spot with medicating where I can feel all of my feelings, but they don’t own me or sit on top of me and stop me functioning. I still have episodes every now and then, and the thing with episodes is that nothing is going to make it better. You’re aware you have blown it out of proportion and you know nothing will change for the next few hours until you cry yourself to sleep. The meds, I can take a tablet and stop the episode and keep myself and everyone else self and my goodness, the hours I’ve got back in my life being able to say, ‘Okay I’ve adequately felt my feelings, I’m taking my meds and opting out of this breakdown.’”

“Emotional Rodeo came about because I was searching for a song about BPD and bipolar, but for it not to be miserable. I wanted something really fun, and I couldn’t find it so I DIY’d it. I wrote the song I’d want to hear. It’s about being a lot to handle and how relationships with BDP can be awful. They’re all consuming and exhausting. I like laughing at something that tries to own you.”

A chance tweet from Ed Sheeran led to Devlin heading to Australia to support Russell Crowe’s band, The Gentleman Barbers, and the two have become friends with Devlin due to support Crowe on tour again.

He [Crowe] is a horse lover and always has been. One of the horses he had for years, he used in numerous movies. I was out in January of last year [before I supported him on tour] and I was told, ‘Oh, he’ll try and get you out on quad bikes,’ because he has the most beautiful farm – it’s a pocket of heaven. Someone mentioned something about a horse and I said, ‘Horses?’ I asked him about them, and he let me take his horse out into the bush. He has a stable master that looks after his horses. He doesn’t ride them, but he keeps them.”

“I tried to convince him to get a Belgian Draught. I asked him over dinner, I said: ‘Do you know what a Belgian Draught is?’, he said he didn’t think he did, so I had a video on my phone of a Belgian Draught stallion with muscle bulging everywhere. I showed him, and I could see the thought processes in his brain. I said to his stable master that he needs to keep the pressure on!”


“I was speaking to him over text the pother day, and I sent him a photo of one of the Shires that I ride. I was like, ‘Hey, if you want to go for a hack in London, I’ve got the man for you. There’s enough to shires to go round if his whole crew want to go.” Devlin has promised that if she can persuade Crowe to go for a hack with her, she’ll let us know.

Devlin has worked with numerous charities since finding fame on The X Factor, but one based in North London has piqued her interest. The charity Strength & Learning Through Horses offers life changing mental health and education services to young people aged between six and 25, using equine therapy to provide an alternative psychotherapeutic treatment.

I went to visit their facilities and meet their horses. I’ve worked with lots of charities in the past, but for me, I know how much help horses give my mental health and if I can help anyone to experience that too, then I will. Working with this charity was very natural. I went to meet everyone – and they are all professionals, including psychiatrists – but they are all fundamentally horse people. It makes such a difference. Hearing the stories of how they take some of these kids that can’t get out of bed and haven’t been to school for a year, what they get out of the regularity of being around horses is amazing.”

“It’s a therapy without therapy. A lot of these kids have been to professionals before and they’re probably fed up, so having therapy that isn’t a traditional therapy gives them much more. They’ve been white coated out, and it’s a case of get the white coats off and your wellies on. The horses are very characterful which helps. The work they do is just phenomenal. In the summer, I’m going to volunteer for a week and do what I can. I know how much this can help the kids that go.”

I came away from our interview uplifted. Devlin is buoyant, and her raw honesty is refreshing. With the imminent release of a new single and an album to follow, the future looks bright for the quiet girl from Northern Ireland, who captivated the nation on a Saturday night TV show.

Find out more about Janet Devlin on her website, or follow her on Facebook and Instagram as Janet Devlin Official. Janet’s single Emotional Rodeo is available on iTunes now.

Katie Gilmour is the host of Poles, Piaffe & Prosecco: the podcast for riders that love to train, laugh and drink prosecco! The podcast is free to listen to on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

* Additional reporting by Tania Grantham.