X Factor winner Leon: "talk of votes being rigged is very upsetting"

X Factor winner Leon Jackson has spoken out about the recent controversy surrounding the hit TV talent show.

Over 1,000 angry views have complained to media watchdog Ofcom that they were unable to get through to vote for Rhydian Roberts - who came runner up to Leon, 18.

"You can never know the truth," says Leon, a former shelf-stacker for clothes store the GAP.

"Talk of votes being rigged is very upsetting. I don't know if they were. The voting is out of your hands."

Leon  – who has not had a chance to speak to Rhydian since Saturday's final – says the slurs have made him even more determined to succeed.

"It's put more pressure on me to work even harder now," he tells Britain's Daily Star newspaper.

"I want to make Scotland proud, and take the criticism with a pinch of salt."

Leon's mum Wendy claims lots of callers weren't able to vote for her son, either.

"I had one person tell me they had tried 300 times to get through,' she told a Scottish radio station. "So it's not just the Welsh folk who had trouble."