Advertisement

The X Factor winner Dami Im reveals brutal truth behind reality TV

The X Factor winner Dami Im reveals brutal truth behind reality TV.

Video transcript

DAMI IM: You know, for me, I grew up all my life playing music. I was a classical pianist. Then I was working, sort of working as a singer-songwriter, performing in little-- you know, I did the Korean Christian circuit. And yeah, so that was what I wanted to keep doing.

But then when I was on the show, there was just a lot of pressure being on television. And it was just the schedule, crazy schedule every single day. You had to, you know, go with like do 100 things you got to learn, like two new songs. You've got to learn the routine. You've got to do press. You've got to do a dress fitting.

Yeah, like, it was just a lot of things to do. And I had never experienced that before until then. So it was like a really steep learning curve. And it was really, really difficult. But also what a great training ground for somebody to like get into the industry. Like, it was like you've got to learn quickly like this. Otherwise, you'll fall behind.

And you know, I went through it. And because of that, I got to learn all these great, you know, techniques of performing on stage and what actually goes on with, you know, styling, staging, and choreography like this, things that I've never knew before. I've only known the music side of things. And also, I got to develop my vocals and realize what people like and don't like and, you know, take that into consideration a little bit.

You know, I never used to belt songs. Like, I used to just sing very quietly and restrain myself. But on the show, I was like, if I sing real loudly, people respond. So I started to play around with that.

And "Purple Rain," for example, it just goes bigger and bigger and bigger. And everyone's like, "Oh my gosh, goosebumps." And I'm like, OK, and like, you know, as a performer, all you want to do is make people feel something.

And oh, this actually gets people to get goosebumps. And they feel really impressed and happy and excited. So I'm going to do more of that, you know? So I learned so much.