X FACTOR eccentric Kitty Brucknell worked in a string of seedy nightclubs as a £500-a-night lap­dancer. The desperate singer charged £20 a time to strip naked for ­customers for up to four nights a week as she struggled to get her music career off the ground. She was disliked by the other strippers and was attacked by one girl for making an obscene remark about her body. Advertisement >> Yet Kitty was a hit with customers, who would laugh at her bizarre, “out of time” pole-dancing routines and extravagant burlesque outfits. And last night she belted out a dramatic, emotionally charged version of Queen’s Who Wants To Live Forever to an estimated 10 million TV viewers in the first live show. Desperately hoping Louis would vote to keep her in the contest, she shook with tension as she towered above the stage on elevated podium, dressed in a silver basque. She received a mixed response from the crowd and the judges. Tulisa called her a “complicated character,” adding “No one can argue that performance wasn’t absolutely captivating.” Louis told her: “You’re controversial, you’re dramatic and you’re trouble.” She was just as dramatic in her previous career as a lapdancer. One girl who worked with her said: “Kitty stuck out like a sore thumb and did some of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen a stripper do, but she was always saying she wanted to go on the X Factor and never stopped singing. “All she wanted was attention. She’ll clearly do anything it takes to be famous and win the show.” It’s the latest in a series of revelations about the larger-than-life hopeful. When she needed cash to pay rent on her flat in 2007, privately educ­ated Kitty, 26, from ­Cheltenham, Glos, worked at strip clubs in and around London. Her dreams of ­becoming a famous ­singer were not working out and her other job as a Lady GaGa imperson­ator didn’t cover her costs. CRAZY At first she took a job lapdancing at the LA Confidential gentlemen’s club in Ealing, West London. One fellow dancer said: “Kitty was very shy at first when she was working here. She was like a choir girl but she had a very distinctive dancing style which I remembered the minute I saw her prance around the X Factor stage in her auditions.” Kitty left after just two weeks, but later the same year found a new job at Spearmint Rhino. An ex-stripper from the club in Slough, Berks, said: “When she first came in she told us she wanted the money to make her a famous singer and launched into an array of Christina Aguilera songs. She was good but it seemed strange. We knew straight away she was a bit crazy and it got worse. Kitty ­clearly had a lot of ­confidence. The men who came to the club loved it when she was called to dance. “She always picked Christina’s songs and used to do the most jerky, out-of-time dances. She didn’t seem to have any pole-dancing training as she was always too fast for the music. “It used to make the whole club roar with laughter. She would also sing so loudly you could hear her over the music without a mike. The bosses weren’t too happy, but men liked it. And she flounced around the bar talking to every man possible just to make extra cash.” Kitty (real name Kimberley Edwards) has stunned X Factor viewers with her outfits, ­including the £2,000 leotard that lit up during one performance. Her odd clothes were noticed at the strip club too. The Spearmint Rhino source said: “Her dress sense was ­appalling. Kitty always wore ­corsets and feath­ery dresses to make her stand out.” Kitty worked from 9pm till 4am three or four days a week, and took £12 of every £20 dance fee. After tips and private dances, she could earn £500 a night. But she was not popular with the other girls. Weeks before she quit, she was involved in a 4am dressing room bust-up with another dancer after making a rude comment about her private parts. Our source said: “No one liked Kitty so everyone stuck up for the other girl. We kept them apart so they didn’t come to blows.” In March 2008, Kitty left to work at one of London’s Secrets ­lapdancing clubs. Since her first X Factor days, her fragile nervous state has caused concerns for her welfare, and this week police probed internet death threats aimed at her. But our lapdancer source said: “Girls at the club used to think she was mad. “She will stop at nothing to make sure she is the one being talked about even if it means pushing herself to the edge of a breakdown so she can get sympathy. Kitty just wants fame.”