ACID-tongued pop svengali, Simon Cowell, hit out at the pushy parents of an X Factor contestant when she appeared on the show on Saturday.

Emma Chawner, aged 17, brought her biggest fans, her mother, father and older sister, to her audition.

The teenager from Ramsbottom said she had what it takes because: "I've been told by my mum and dad that I'm really good."

Chawner's mother confessed to the ITV show that they had "literally pushed her and pushed her and got her to sing like a star".

Viewers heard how her father made the teenager her own show-stopping outfit which took him two days to sew.

But Chawner's version of the Celine Dion classic My Heart Will Go On did not impress the judges.

She fluffed her lines halfway through the performance and said she could not go on.

Cowell said: "I'm not a fashion expert but for starters that dress is completely wrong and then you sang out of tune and it sounded like a baby."

The dejected teenager walked out after the other judges agreed with Cowell.

But her family went into the audition room to get an explanation.

Cowell was in no mood to face the angry parents and cut them off before they had a chance to speak.

He told them: "If you are coming in here to give me a hard time then you've got to take a good look at yourselves.

"You are the reason why this girl is disappointed and I have to blame you guys for encouraging her to believe she's going to do well in something when she so obviously isn't.

"You have given her false hope."

The parents said their daughter had won cups and accolades for singing in the past.

But Cowell said: "People who've won a rosette at a donkey derby don't go on to win the grand national, your daughter cannot sing."

The show, on ITV1, was the last of the audition stages ahead of the bootcamp shows, which will be screened from next week.