A FRIEND and former mentor of Cher has said nerves are nothing to worry about for a superstar in the making.

Gathan Cheema, a professional singer and dancer who mentored Cher through the Worcester Text Factor competition earlier this year, believes the Malvern Link teenager has the talent and determination to go the distance – even if she gets a little shaky before big performances.

Mr Cheema, who was 16 when he reached the Bootcamp stage of X Factor in 2007, said: “She is a confident person. There’s just a shyness about her on stage. It’s the same for a lot of performers – almost everyone gets nervous.”

Mr Cheema won Text Factor at Sin Bar in 2009 and now works as a Michael Jackson tribute.

He spent weeks working with Cher during the talent show, helping her to choose the right songs and improve her stage presence. Mr Cheema, who is now 20 and lives in Lowesmoor, Worcester, has urged people to get behind the local star.

He said: “I think all of us who judged Text Factor turned around at some point and said, ‘That girl is going to be a star’. We used the word unique week in and week out.

“Like everyone she had some stunning performances and some bad ones, but she was so gutsy and different every time.

“She’s very malleable, but she won’t become a manufactured pop star.

“Simon Cowell wouldn’t know what to do with her.”

Picking out his ones to watch, Mr Cheema said Cher’s biggest competition would be painter and decorator Matt Cardle and care home assistant John Adeleye.

“She is almost too different to be compared with the other girls,” said Mr Cheema.

“I think the public will either get Cher or they won’t. And judging by the number of times people are watching her on YouTube, they get her.”

Cher, aged 17, shot to fame overnight when her Birmingham audition for the ITV show was broadcast last month. A clip of her singing Soulja Boy’s Turn My Swag On in front of the judges has been viewed on video-sharing website YouTube more than 6.8 million times.

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