X Factor contestant opens up about breaking up with her boyfriend to be with a female fan
X Factor contestant Saara Aalto has opened up about breaking up with her boyfriend to be with a female fan.
The singer, who is currently competing on X Factor on Sharon Osbourne’s team, split up with her ex-boyfriend in order to be with the fan Meri Sopanen.
The singer previously competed to represent her native Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest, and was featured on the Voice of Finland.
She met Sopanen while performing on the Voice.
Speaking to the Sun, Aalto said: “My girlfriend – fiancée now – watched the show, liked me a lot and sent me a fan message through Facebook. She wrote, ‘I have never, ever sent a message like this to anybody, but I just had this intuition that I have to send this to you.’ I was like, ‘That’s so cute’, and thought, ‘What a nice-looking girl.’”
The couple met up a year later when Sopanen attended one of Aalto’s concerts.
“We started talking and realised we just shared the same view of life and everything.”
The couple got engaged this summer after being together for two years.
Their relationship is professional as well as personal, as Sopanen now works as Aalto’s manager.
Of their working engagement, Aalto added: “We are a very good team and I love to work with her. If we didn’t work together we’d never see each other.”
As well as competing on Eurovision and the Voice, Aalto also voiced the character Anna in the Finnish dubbed version of the hit Disney film Frozen.
Before being with Sopanen, she was in a relationship with fellow Finnish singer Teemu Roivainen for nine years.
“He was my producer and band leader. We started dating when I was 15 and we fell in love and we still love each other. But when you grow, you get older and I realised that I would prefer being with a girl. Me and Teemu still love each other like a brother and sister.”
