FORMER X Factor star and pop favourite Olly Murs recently released his sixth album You Know I Know. He talks to Leisure Live about why he feels he has survived in the industry, ahead of his tour next year, which includes a date in Dorset on May 9.

Olly Murs has just been asked: how have you managed to last for so long when so many of your X Factor peers have vanished into thin air?

It’s clearly not an easy one for Murs, who has not a single arrogant bone in his body. Having to pick apart the reasons for his success over others is somewhat tricky.

“I think it’s just luck,” he says, having mulled it over for a short while.

“Listen, I don’t want to sit here and say it’s because of this or because of that. I genuinely think it’s just luck.

“I never thought I’d have the career that I’ve had. I never really focus on anyone but myself. I wasn’t looking at Joe McElderry or Stacey Solomon or anyone else on The X Factor.

“I was just like, ‘How can I make a dent in this industry? How can I have a number one record?’ Also, it was having the right songs at the right time.

“Sometimes you have that moment in the market where the door opens, and I took that opportunity with both hands.”

Take it with both hands he did, and now, nearly a decade after coming second behind the now lesser-seen McElderry in 2009’s The X Factor, Murs is among the most enduring of all those who ever went through that process, along with the likes of One Direction and Little Mix.

Murs has so far scored four number one albums, plenty of chart-topping and top 10 singles, including debut hit Please Don’t Let Me Go, Heart Skips A Beat and Wrapped Up - and six Brit Award nominations.

He has landed a number of other impressive jobs, including presenting X Factor’s spin-off show The Xtra Factor before being bumped up to present the main show, and he is now a coach on The Voice alongside Sir Tom Jones, Jennifer Hudson and Will.i.am.

For all his high moments, including working with Nile Rodgers on his new record (“it was such an honour”, he gushes), Murs is also honest about one of his lowest.

Murs was savaged for his stint hosting The X Factor back in 2015 alongside Caroline Flack.

They were picked apart pretty much daily in the tabloids and by viewers on Twitter, and things only got worse when Murs mistakenly told a contestant she was eliminated before the result was officially announced, and the negativity hit him very hard around a year later.

“It wasn’t necessarily the experience of hosting it at the time, it didn’t affect me until after. I’d kind of moved on, but then the doubts and the anxiety all came a year later,” he admits.

Murs says it nearly affected him accepting The Voice, because “all of a sudden, the doubt came in and I started questioning myself”.

He said that, after having an “amazing couple of sessions with a lovely lady”, he was able to work through his issues and has come out the other side feeling more positive. He’s back on track.

Now fully at ease on The Voice, he will appear in his second series next year.

But what does he think of the show that actually made him famous? Sure, he’s a fully paid-up member of The Voice club now, and The X Factor seems to be falling out of favour with viewers, the numbers dwindling by the episode.

It’s impossible not to ask one of its biggest success stories if he thinks it’s time for The X Factor to bid farewell.

“I would hate The X Factor not to be on TV,” he responds.

“It’s hard for me to be critical of any show, because X Factor has such a big place in my heart. Deep down, if it wasn’t on anymore, we’d all miss it.

“I love the show and, even though I’m on a rival show now, we’re on at a different time of year and we’ll never be in that X Factor slot.

“On The Voice, we’re so happy, it’s going really well and we just need to make sure we’re getting the talent through.”

He finishes: “I’ve seen what it’s done to my life, and if it can help change someone else’s, then that’s amazing.

“That’s what it’s all about.”

* Olly Murs will be at the BIC on May 9, 2019. To book, visit bhlivetickets.co.uk. You Know I Know by Olly Murs is out now.