‘The X Factor USA’ Winners & Runners-Up: Where Are They Now?
While other singing competition shows like American Idol and The Voice have kept the music going for more than a decade, the U.S. version of The X Factor only aired three seasons before Fox gave it the axe. (The original U.K. version, on the other hand, lasted five times as long.)
Now, The X Factor USA, as the U.S. version came to be known, is probably remembered only for giving us the girl group Fifth Harmony and a lifetime supply of Britney Spears reaction GIFs. It might even be a distant memory for the finalists below, all of whom have moved on with new pursuits that don’t involve Simon Cowell or L.A. Reid. To mark The X Factor USA’s 10th anniversary on September 21, here are updates on each winner and runner-up.
Season 1 winner Melanie Amaro
Amaro has recently been performing a series of Whitney Houston tribute shows titled Passing the Torch; the next one is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29, at City Winery in Atlanta, Georgia.
“My life has changed quite a bit,” Amaro said on ATL Live last year as she reflected on her post-X Factor era. “Engaged, planning my wedding … I’m a mom now. I have three boys. … I have a 7-year-old and [twin] boys. So maneuvering through that with my gigs and work [as a] mommy and soon-to-be-wife, life has differently been a whirlwind for me.”
Season 1 runner-up Josh Krajcik
Krajcik is also still performing: In 2024, he released the album Ephiphaniac, inspired by his near-death experience five years prior. He told Matter News he was hospitalized for two weeks with liver failure after years of heavy drinking.
“That experience was, of course, a trauma. But it was also this big shift in my whole trajectory as a person,” he said. “And, honestly, much of this record is about my survival. I mean, it’s easy to call your own [music] heavy when it’s just art, right? But in this case it’s sort of true, in that there was this contemplation of self to discover my wounds and heal them. … I’m sure someday I’ll listen to [the album] and get spooked out by the whole thing.”
Season 2 winner Tate Stevens
So far, Stevens only has one full-length album to his name:his 2013 self-titled LP. But he released the single “Sugartown” in 2020, “Snow Dusted Denim, Vol. 1” in 2025, and “Lucky for Me” and “Perfect to Me” this year.
This June, Stevens headlined the Ag City Music Festival in Harrisonville, Missouri — near his hometown of Belton, Missouri — in an effort to attract soccer fans visiting nearby Kansas City for the World Cup.
“Anytime that you can introduce somebody to something new that they can relate to is cool, right? Music is one of the best mediums we have to do that,” Stevens told KSHB. “How I was raised, where I was raised is really embedded in my music.”
Season 2 runner-up Carly Rose Sonenclar
In the years since her X Factor fame, Sonenclar earned a B.S. in music from the University of Southern California and relaunched her music career under the name Carly Rose. She released the album Wild in 2020 and has since released three EPs: 2024’s Somebody’s Someone and 2025’s Because of You and Real.
“I would be lying if I said I never look back and wonder what would be different for me right now had I chosen to jump into the machine directly after my time on X Factor,” she explained to XS Noise in 2022. “A big part of why I decided to return to my hometown and school was so that I could experience things that inspired my writing and shaped who I would be as an artist. At 13, I had been working professionally in the industry for most of my life at that point and felt I needed to balance out my childhood with normalcy to have anything aside from my career to write about.”
Season 3 winners Alex & Sierra
Alex Kinsey and Sierra Deaton have gone their separate ways, announcing on social media in 2017 that they had broken up as a couple over a year prior and had decided to break up as a musical duo, too.
Since then, Deaton has written many songs for the pop rock group 5 Seconds of Summer and married the group’s lead vocalist Luke Hemmings. A year ago, Deaton and Hemmings welcomed their first baby, per People.
Kinsey, meanwhile, went solo with a 2019 EP titled Party of One and a 2022 EP titled Antisocial Person. And earlier this year, Kinsey released “The Road Home,” a song for the film of the same name, a documentary about BMX athlete Terry Adams.
Season 3 runner-up Jeff Gutt
Gutt perhaps has the highest profile of these X Factor USA winners and runners-up, having become the lead vocalist of the rock band Stone Temple Pilots in 2017. With Gutt at the microphone, STP released their second self-titled album in 2018 and their album Perdida in 2020.
In a Rocking With Jam Man interview this August, Gutt said he believed STP would release another album but admitted he’d be fine if they just toured with their classic hits. “I always have to make music,” he said. “I write pretty much every day. And I have other things that I put energy into. I do a lot of … working with younger bands that are working with producers that are friends of mine, and I’ll go in and work with them and do that. So to me, it’s not about my glory or my fame or whatever it is. To me, it’s just about the music and the songs that connect.”
Conversation
Please read the TV Insider Community Guidelines.
Comments are closed on this story.
Watchlist Easy access to only the shows you care about — all in one simple place
Alerts Only important notifications — when a show is returning, when it becomes available to stream, and more.
Special Offers Exclusive products we release related to your favorite shows and streaming services