Shayne Ward (born 15 October 1984 in Manchester) is an Anglo-Irish pop singer who rose to prominence in the United Kingdom after becoming the winner of the 2005 series of the talent show The X Factor. Ward has six siblings, including a twin sister. Prior to his participation in The X Factor, Ward was in a band called Destiny with two women named Tracy Murphy and Tracey Lyle. They performed at pubs, clubs and weddings. Ward also reached the final thirty of Popstars: The Rivals.
During The X Factor competition, Ward was mentored by manager Louis Walsh. The Bookies' favourite to win the show, he defeated duo Journey South and singer Andy Abraham in the final, screened by ITV1, by a margin of 1.2f the vote, out of a reputed 10.8 million phone votes cast by viewers (since the programme was watched by an audience averaging 9.2 million people, it is likely that some viewers cast multiple votes for all finalists).
His first single, "That's My Goal", was released in the UK on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 and became the Christmas number one in 2005. It sold 313,000 copies on its first day of sales, making it the third fastest selling single of all time (behind Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" and Will Young's "Evergreen", which sold 685,000 and 400,000 copies in their first days of sale respectively).
Ward became a controversial figure in the final weeks of the karis competition when it emerged that his father, Martin Ward, is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence for rape. Ward has acknowledged his father's crime in recent interviews with the British press, and his popularity remains unaffected.
His new single was released on Monday 10 April 2006, and it reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart. His album was released on Monday April 17th, and it sold over 95,000 copies on the first two days of release. It was predicted to crash land at No.1, and it has already outsold the rest of the top ten combined. By the end of the week the album sold 201,266 copies. The album sold 71,396 copies in its second week, and fell to Number 2.
A recent deal with Calvin Klein has landed Shayne Ward a modelling deal with their autumn/winter collection. This modelling contract has been rumoured to be worth over £500,000. Also on the series finale of X factor- Battle of the stars Simon Cowell stated that Shayne has sold over 3 million records.
