Emmanuel Kelly, a chemical warfare survivor from Iraq, doesn’t know exactly how old he is, but he managed to bring the judges on The X Factor (Australia series 3) to tears during the season’s audition show in August 29, 2011 with his rendition of Imagine made famous by The Beatles in 1971.
His performance also earned a standing ovation from the judges and the audience, reaffirming the age-old adage “Never judge a book by its cover”.
However during the third day of bootcamp, Emmanuel was eliminated from the show after he had forgotten words to his song the day before.
Emmanuel and his brother Ahmed were adopted by Children First Foundation boss, Moira Kelly. The brothers, born with “severely underdeveloped limbs” due to chemical warfare, were discovered by Moira in 1998 at the Mother Teresa Orphanage in Baghdad.
Kelly brought both the brothers to Australia for medical treatment and subsequently adopted them.