Read an Excerpt
Who Is Harry Styles?
“What’s your name?”
Simon Cowell, a judge on the TV talent show The X Factor UK, stared sternly at the young man standing onstage.
“I’m Harry Styles.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m sixteen.”
Harry was one of the youngest contestants to audition for the British show that year. He loved to sing but had no idea if he was any good. He was in a small band with friends, and his mom, Anne, always encouraged him. But auditioning for The X Factor UK would give him a chance to get a professional opinion. If the show’s judges liked him, maybe he could make music his career.
So, in March of 2010, Harry’s family made the three-hour journey to London, where they waited with Harry alongside thousands of other hopeful performers. Harry sang for several assistants and producers, and they kept passing him through to the next level. Only the best singers would get a chance to audition in front of the judges and a live audience. Harry was one of the ones who made it that far.
Harry answered Simon’s questions about the bakery where he worked on Saturdays. There was a reason behind the somewhat random questions. They were meant to show whether a performer could speak confidently under pressure, without showing any nerves. The X Factor UK was based on the idea that true stars weren’t just talented. They had a special “something” that grabbed people’s attention. Some people call this “the X factor.” Based on Harry’s comfort onstage, and the way the audience cheered for him, it sure seemed like he might have that “something.”
But he also had to show them that he could sing.
Harry started to sing a song by the band Train, along with recorded music. But Simon stopped him quickly and said he thought that the recorded music was throwing Harry off. He asked if Harry could sing something else. Harry began to sing “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, but without any recorded music playing. This time he seemed more confident. Now the judges had to decide whether he should move on to the next phase of the show or not.
Louis Walsh, another judge, said he liked Harry but thought he was too young. The audience booed Louis loudly. Judge Nicole Scherzinger voted for Harry to move on. Now it was up to Simon Cowell. He was known as the tough judge, but he knew how to find talent and turn people into stars. He voted yes. The audience cheered and screamed. Harry was going on to the next part of the competition.
The audience was right to cheer. This performance was the start of something huge! Soon Harry Styles would be one of the biggest stars in the world thanks to his choice to audition for the competition that day. It all started when five teenagers from The X Factor UK were brought together to create one of the biggest boy bands in history.
Chapter 1: Finding the X Factor
Harry Edward Styles was born on February 1, 1994, in Redditch, Worcestershire, England, to his parents, Anne Twist and Desmond Styles. He has an older sister, Gemma. The family later moved to Holmes Chapel in the northwestern part of England, near Manchester. When Harry was seven years old, his parents decided to divorce. While he spent most of his time with his mother, his father was still involved in his life.
Harry grew up listening to the music that his parents played during car rides. Their favorites, like Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones, and Shania Twain, became his favorites, too. Harry soon discovered that he loved to sing. He often clowned around while performing in front of people, imitating singers like Elvis Presley. But he was too shy to really sing in his own voice in public. He saved those private performances for home, where only Gemma could hear Harry singing to himself.
As a teen, Harry got bolder about singing. He formed a band with friends from school, and they entered a local Battle of the Bands—and won! Harry loved the experience and began to wonder if he could become a professional singer.
In 2010, Anne heard that there were going to be auditions in London for The X Factor UK, a singing competition. She filled out the application for Harry and he agreed to go. But as it got closer to the date, Harry became so nervous that he got sick. He still decided to go to the audition.
After Harry made it through the first audition, he and the other singers were sent to “boot camp” where they learned new songs and dances, then performed for the judges again. Only the top singers from the group would move on to the next part of the competition. On July 23, 2010, Harry stood onstage with all the other boys, hoping to hear his name called. When it wasn’t, he was crushed. He didn’t want to just go back home and go back to school. It felt like his dream had come to an end.
Then, just as Harry was getting ready to leave, a producer asked several boys to come back onstage. Harry was one of them. He wasn’t excited about it. Harry thought the producers probably just wanted to interview them and film them crying to add some drama to the show. But he was very, very wrong.
Behind the scenes, the judges had struggled deciding which boys should move on. Judge Nicole Scherzinger began to put some of them together to compete as a group instead of as solo singers. One of the group members was Harry.
The five boys waited onstage and listened as Scherzinger explained the group idea to them. Harry and the other boys jumped around, celebrating. He hardly knew them, but Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik were about to become some of the most important people in Harry’s life.
Chapter 2: Third-Place Winners
The boys had a few weeks off before they began the next phase of the competition. They realized that they needed to spend time with each other and learn how to sing as a group. Harry’s mother’s boyfriend owned a small cottage, and he invited the boys to stay there.
During those weeks, the new band members got to know each other. They talked, joked, and listened to music. They came up with band names, and Harry suggested One Direction. That sounded good to everyone.
By the time One Direction got to the next part of the competition, they looked more like a group of friends than five strangers who had been thrown together. And they sang well, too. The new band was sent to the biggest part of the competition. Each week, they would have to learn a new song and perform live in front of an audience. Then, voters would call in from all over the United Kingdom to decide who should move on to the next round—and who should be sent home.
They moved into a house in London with all the other X Factor UK contestants and started working on new songs to perform. Harry got very nervous before the first show but made it through the band’s performance of “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay. One Direction received enough votes to keep going.
Each week, the band got better and better. But something else was happening, too.
At first there were a few fans waiting for them outside the X Factor UK studio. People who saw One Direction on the show began to post photos and news about them on social media, and uploaded clips from The X Factor UK on YouTube. Soon there were hundreds of fans waiting to see the boys. When the show sent them out for promotional appearances, even more fans showed up.
It wasn’t just their singing or good looks that attracted fans. X Factor UK contestants had to record video diaries for the show, where the boys talked about their week and answered fan questions. These videos gave them a chance to be silly and have fun. Audiences loved how relatable and funny the young men in One Direction were. People could imagine being friends with them.
Finally, on December 10, 2010, One Direction was eliminated from The X Factor UK. Overall, they finished third in the competition. The band members were devastated. But One Direction wasn’t finished. In early 2011, One Direction signed a contract with Simon’s music label, SYCO Music. By April, the band was in a professional recording studio, singing original songs written just for them.
In August, their first song, “What Makes You Beautiful,” was released, followed by a music video filmed on a beach in California. It showed how different One Direction was from other boy bands at the time. Most other boy bands dressed alike and performed tightly choreographed dances. But in One Direction’s first video, they mostly just played around on the beach, like a group of friends hanging out together. Fans everywhere wanted to join them.
