Simon Cowell to walk Lucy Spraggan down the aisle when she weds girlfriend Emilia Smith in June

X Factor star Lucy Spraggan is engaged to be married - says Simon Cowell will walk her down the aisle.

The 32-year-old singer-songwriter, who appeared on the reality singing show in 2012, announced in an Instagram post that she will marry her girlfriend Emilia Smith in June. It comes after Spraggan told Fabulous Magazine that she had asked Cowell, 64, to give her away while she was staying with him and his fiancee Lauren Silverman.

On social media, Spraggan shared a reel of photos and said she now fully appreciates the phrase “when you know you know”. “It wasn’t until I fell in love with my friend of 10 years that I truly felt it”, she said.

Spraggan said Smith had “spent hours on the phone” with her during her “darkest days” and sent her 48 Tunnock’s Tea Cakes while she was writing her book.

“I am so thankful that the universe gave me you, Emilia”, she said. “I was immensely thankful when you were just my friend and I cannot begin to describe the gratitude I have to experience your love in a different way. Every single part of life has had to happen in order to be standing right beside you now and I honestly would not live any other kind of alternative even if I could.

“People say ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve you’ but I’ve told you before, I think everything I’ve ever done has led me to you. You were the prize. All the hard work and all the survival got us both to where we were supposed to be: thriving beside each other. You are without doubt the hottest, most cool, talented, hardworking, kind and spiritual soul I’ve ever come across and it is the world’s greatest privilege to be with you.”

She ended the post: “I can’t wait to start life as a team. I can’t think of a better way to start a marriage than 10 years of friendship first.”

Speaking to Fabulous Magazine about the engagement, Spraggan said: “Emilia and I were those friends who said: ‘If we’re not married by the time we’re 40, we’ll get married to each other,’ and somehow, this deep friendship opened up into attraction.”

Discussing how she asked Cowell to walk her down the aisle, she said: “We’d been staying at Simon and Lauren’s house for a few days. One morning, Simon was about to get in the sea and I said: ‘Will you give me away?’ and he replied: ‘Yeah!’. He went off for a swim and when he came back, he said: ‘I’d absolutely love to. It would be an honour’.”

Spraggan had previously revealed that an apology from Cowell paved the way for her healing process, nearly a decade after she was raped, in her explosive memoir Process: Finding My Way Through (2023). In the book she said she was raped in her hotel room by a porter who used a traceable keycard to gain access. He pleaded guilty and was given a 10-year jail sentence.

The music mogul’s apology came after she wrote to the companies behind The X Factor: ITV, Fremantle and Syco, Cowell’s company, detailing her experience in 2012. Spraggan was previously married to Georgina Gordon, whom she had met shortly after her X Factor stint, and in November 2019 she announced they had split after three years of marriage.