Saara Aalto will be competing against Strictly Come Dancing star James Jordan and Wes Nelson. The 31-year-old is best known for her appearance as a contestant on the X Factor. She finished as a runner-up in The X Factor UK in 2016, losing out to Matt Terry.
In the final she sang Whitney Houston’s ‘I Didn’t Know My Own Strength’ and became the most googled person in Finland.
Following her appearance on X Factor, she became a judge on the Finnish version of the show.
Saara Aalto is a Finnish singer and songwriter who represented Finland at the Eurovision song contest in 2018, after losing out to Paradise Oskar 2011 and Sandhja in 2016.
She has been composing music since the age of five.
In 2018 she sang her single ‘Monsters’ from her debut album Wild Wild Wonderland, shequalified for the final but finished second last.
She is the singer for Princess Merida in the Finnish version of Disney’s animation Brave and is also the voice of Anna in the Finnish version of Frozen.
Her cover of ‘Let it Go’ sung in 15 languages has gained more than five million views on YouTube.
While Saara was competing on The X Factor she called off a nine-year relationship with Finnish singer Teemu Roivainen and started dating a gay female fan, Meri Sopanen.
The first time she went public with her relationship was during her time on the X Factor, saying: “My sexuality was never an issue.”
They got engaged in August 2016 but Saara proposed once more in 2017 when same-sex marriage was legalised in their home country of Finland.
When the announcement was made, the singer tweeted: “Same sex marriage is legal in Finland today!!! Would you marry me @MeriSopanen.”
She told Newsbeat in 2017: “It’s all about love and we finally are a loving country. It’s important to us.
“We’ve been all waiting for this so long – years and years.
“Other countries already had that law and we really had to fight for it.”
She added: “All the straight people and gay people, we all came together and were like, ‘we have to have this law, we have to work for it together’”.
However it is not known when or if the ceremony has taken place.