We don't know if CeCe Frey has the X factor yet, but she sure does have dual singing personalities!
After thoroughly depressing with a pitchy take on "Unchained Melody," the 20-year-old mail clerk did a complete 180 and took a huge bite out of Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man" when The X Factor auditions touched down in Kansas City, Mo.
How fitting for a girl with leopard spots painted on the left side of her face.
"I love ambitious people. And I love ambitious people with talent," raved Louis Walsh, on loan from Britain's X Factor while an ailing Simon Cowell battled bronchitis back in Los Angeles. (Bummer, he missed the birthday cake for L.A. Reid!)
"Your attitude is awesome—and I kind of have a girl crush on you," added the ever-loving Demi Lovato.
Kansas City also offered up little blond rapper Rizzloe Jones, 18, who like an improv comedian asked the audience for a topic and then performed a freestyle rap; 39-year-old Vino Alan, who actually received milder praise from the judges than we expected after his chillingly good rendition of Ray La Montagne's "Trouble"; and 37-year-old, cowboy hat-wearing country crooner Tate Stevens.
Rizzloe, Vino and Tate are all through to the boot camp round.
Not so much Deangelo Wallace, who claimed before thoroughly underwhelming with Chris Brown's "Without You" that he was better than both Justin Bieber and Britney Spears. Instead, he just ended up getting handcuffed after leaving the building still wired to the show-provided microphone. Oops!
"I'm getting arrested, but I'll be out in a few hours," Deangelo crooned, one last audition, before being taken into custody. (He got to sit in the front seat of the cop car, so no criminal mastermind there.)
Then it was back to San Francisco, where the five-guy group Citizen wowed everyone but the back-and-crabbier-than-ever Simon Cowell, who "didn't get it," with their take on En Vogue's "Don't Let Go." (The hottie quintet made it through on the strength of three enthusiastic yeses.)
Simon wasn't even nice to 13-year-old cutie pie Diamond White—until she turned his frown upside down with "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." She didn't sound like James Brown, but she was pretty awesome.
"Diamond, it's ironic that you sang this song, 'It's a Man's...World.' Well you plainly proved that it isn't," said the chipper-again Simon.
The edited-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life show closed tonight in Austin, Texas. Auditions started with Ally Brooke turning in an epic performance of Jaci Velasquez's "On My Knees" that had L.A. shaking his head in disbelief, but in a good way!
The kids were quite all right in Austin, too: Brandon Hassan, only 16, did an ever better job with "Trouble" than Vino, 23 years his senior, did back in Kansas City. Normani Hamilton, 15, blew 'em away with Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools." Sister C, actual sisters between the ages of 17 and 21, put the Pistol Annies' "Hell on Heels" in its place.
"Fiancé in the house, awkward!" Simon berated Britney after she told duo Jeremiah & Josh (both 22) that she wanted them to wake her up in the morning. "Singing!" she insisted. (She'll at least get to rise and shine with them again during boot camp.)
Perhaps most memorably, the very determined Panda took the stage just a day after being released from the hospital after a bout with pneumonia, saying she wouldn't have missed singing in front of Simon Cowell for anything.
Well, she was amazing on Sam Cooke's "Bring It on Home" and all of the judges loved her. "You sound like a legend," Simon marveled. "And I absolutely love you. Always wanted a Panda."
Alas, her recent respiratory troubles caught up with her, and she left the audition in an ambulance after being unable to catch her breath after performing. "I got to sing for Simon," Panda said happily from beneath her oxygen mask, vowing to be healthy enough for boot camp.
We wish her the best.
Last, but not at all least, Jessica Espinoza put a cap on Austin with Pink's "Nobody Knows."
"I didn't like it...I loved it," Simon played coy. "My favorite audition so far."
Sounds like everybody's going to know Jessica soon enough.
What did you think of tonight's jam-packed episode of The X Factor?