X Factor 2018: Winner reveals the strict behind-the-scenes rule YOU didn't know

X Factor star Ashley Fongho, 26, who is one quarter of last year’s winning boy band Rak-Su, revealed all on the strict house rules.

The singer said that contestants are not allowed in each other’s bedrooms late at night.

He added that the show hopefuls were on “lockdown” which often made him want to “sneak out” of the house.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, he revealed: “It is quite strict [in the house] there was no going into other people’s room late at night.”

Explaining the reasons why, he insisted the rule was “to try and cut down on anything going on between the boys and the girls in the house”.

Revealing a second rule, he said producers need to know the contestants’ whereabouts at all times.

He spilled: “They need to know your whereabouts are at all times.

“There’s no doing walking out the house and doing what you want, you are on lockdown 24-seven.

“That can be a little bit… sometimes you just want to sneak out of the back door and go for a walk by yourself but it is what it is.

“We understand why it was like that.”

Rak-Su were mentored by veteran judge and music mogul Simon Cowell, 59.

Spilling all on what he was like as a mentor, Ashley said he was very “hands off”.

This was predominately due to the quartet writing their own songs for their live performances each week.

He said: “There was no choices that he made for us. He’s really really hands off.

“He couldn’t really choose [the songs] because we were writing them.

“So, his mentality was, ‘Look you boys know what you want to do, go away and do it and let me know if you need any help’.

“Once we did it, he would either go, ‘This is great,’ or, ‘That needs some tweaking or can you change this,’ so largely it came from us and I think that was one of the reasons why it worked so well.

“He was really honest, we had a really honest relationship with him.”

Rak-Su, who also comprise of Jamaal Shurland, Mustafa Rahimtulla and Myles Stephenson, returned to the stage this series to perform their new single I Want You To Freak.

After their performance, many viewers took to Twitter to claim they were miming, which Ashley has denied.

He said of the claims: “It annoyed all of us because it is something we worked really really hard on.

“We were worried about it [performing], me and Myles, we do sing but we are probably not the most confident.

“When we finished, we watched it back and we was happy with it.

“So when we saw people saying we were miming, we were like, ‘Look our lives would’ve been a whole lot easier if we were, but we weren’t’.”

Rak-Su’s new single I Want You To Freak and their new book Our Journey are out now.

X Factor continues tonight at 8:30pm on ITV

source: express.co.uk