Alexandra Burke in fabulous new spread

[caption id="attachment_1841" align="alignleft" width="236" caption="Photo credit: Dan Smith/News of the World"][/caption]

One of our favourite British islandistas, singer Alexandra Burke is looking absolutely fabulous in Britain’s News of the World.

The glamourous shoot is surprisingly classy for NOTW, which is your typical brash British celeb tabloid magazine – and we love the look – very Russian princess with dramatic white dresses, diamonds and even wolves!

An extensive interview accompanied the spread, where Alex spoke at length about growing up as the little woman of the house when her mother, Soul II Soul lead singer Melissa Bell was on tour.


“At 12 I was like an adult. I'd take my brothers to school and me and Sheniece would do their homework with them. My grandad would cook but we'd do everything else.


"I now think Mum was amazing because she worked her bum off for us. It was hard on our birthdays when Mum wasn't with us. But she'd send us love and money and we just had to get on with it.

"I learnt from a young age that you just have to accept the cards you're dealt and try to make the best of it. I had a wild side, but I was sensible because I had to be."







[caption id="attachment_1848" align="aligncenter" width="366" caption="Photo credit: Dan Smith/News of the World"][/caption]

She was also refreshingly candid about her enthusiasm for freebies, freely admitting that by celeb standards she is still skint.


"Kate Moss told me not to accept everything. But I haven't taken her advice. When it comes to freebies, I'm the girl who can't say no!"


But the freebie affinity is for a good reason – Alex is saving for a house of her own.


"I'm on a tight budget, I want to buy a house in the country next year because London is too expensive - and I want to buy a car, so I'm saving. That's why I didn't listen to Kate and I love my freebies so much. I even got a free Mini Cooper this year. How mental is that?"


Alex, whose shape is a very West Indian size 10, also spoke about body image and what it means in her business.


“I don't think I've got the perfect body because I've got a big bum and big thighs, but I think men like a bit of meat and all that nonsense of being super-skinny is so over.

"Give us girls a break - we're meant to have curves, not bones. When I shot my latest video I insisted on having girls in it who were plus-sized, mixed in with models. I wanted women of all sizes and all different colours because I don't want young girls watching my videos and thinking you have to look a certain way to be hot.”

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Alexandra Burke in mum v. daughter row?

Awoah!

Fame ent always sweet.

Just ask Alexandra Burke.

The islandista winner of Britain's X-Factor is the cover girl in this month's issue of British Marie Claire. It's a major coup and she looks stunning, as the pics below show.



[caption id="attachment_1540" align="aligncenter" width="186" caption="Photo credit: Marie Claire"][/caption]


But she has also revealed that her new found fame (and there ain't no fame like British fame - the tabloids there are cra-zee) has taken a major toll on her family.





One, it has caused some tension or rather renewed tension (she left home at 16) between her and her mum Melissa Bell, former lead singer of Soul II Soul.

According to Alexandra:


"She had Soul II Soul but it didn't last as long as she wanted it to last.

'Then I get this big new show, I win it, and it's weird for her to see this.

'Although she's proud, it's like she wants to rewind time to when she was younger, when she didn't have kids. 

'I've never talked about this by the way. We're not a perfect family. Things p*** me off.'


Awahdisfadda?!

Mumma Melissa ent tekking dat. She struck back today, saying that Alex isn't even a success yet and explaining why Alex had to leave home when she was 16.

She told the Sunday Mirror:


"It's all very upsetting. And she's not even a success herself yet. I hope she is, but we don't even know how her follow-up single is going to do."


On the claims that Alexandra was put out when she was 16, Melissa says she had to lay down the law and that hard ears you won't hear, own way yuh gine feel.


"I have certain rules. In Caribbean families you have to respect your parents. She needed to experience life, to see if the grass is greener - and she did. I don't know where she went but the door was always open."


She doesn't entirely blame her girl for the shock interview though and puts some of the blame on the publicity machine.


"It's upsetting. I think her PR people are responsible. It's about getting sympathy votes."

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Islandista rising: X-Factor champ Alexandra Burke

[caption id="attachment_446" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Alexandra Burke (left) celebrates her victory with X-Factor mentor, Cheryl Cole of Girls Aloud.Photo credit: Rex Features"][/caption]

Alexandra Burke - remember the name people because she is going to be big - Simon Cowell said so!

And if the word of the X-Factor/ American Idol impresario is not enough for you, in the last 24 hours, Burke, the winner of UK singing reality show X-Factor (which brought us Leona Lewis) has smashed the European record for fastest-downloaded single, with her cover of winner's single Hallelujah, moving 105, 000 copies in one day. The previous record was held by - you guessed it, Ms. Lewis herself who moved 82, 000 for A Moment Like This.

Already Cowell, whose Syco label has the rights for all X-Factor winners, is salivating at the prospect of taking Burke to the world and making her as big a star as Leona, who is the biggest genuine pop star to come out of Britain in at least a decade. He had predicted some time back that she would win and win she has, stepping through the door that Lewis opened in 2006 when she became the first non-white reality show winner in the United Kingdom.

British-born Alexandra is an islandista by descent on both sides - her mother, former Soul II Soul lead singer Melissa Bell is apparently half-Irish, half Jamaican-Indian (looking at pics of her, I suspect Ms. Bell's father may have been a dougla rather than full Indian) and her father David Burke is Jamaican-born. 

Just a few months ago, Alexandra was a part-time waitress and club singer, earning 200 GBP per gig. Despite her mother's stardom in her younger days, the family was far from wealthy, due in part to the fact that Alexandra's father left the family when she was 7 and also due to her mother's diabetes in recent years which has resulted in kidney failure and her needing dialysis three times a week. In fact, she rescheduled her dialysis on Saturday night so she could be at the X-Factor finals to cheer on her daughter. Alexandra has said one of the first things she would like to do is buy her mother an at-home dialysis machine so she would not have to spend so much time going to the hospital for treatment every week. Definitely touching.

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