By 3 News online staff
Jackie Thomas has become the first champion of The X Factor NZ. She beat fellow finalists Whenua Patuwai and Benny Tipene in a competition that went down to the wire.
The 22-year-old from Greymouth was chosen as a member of Daniel Bedingfield's girls team.
Jackie made it into the top two after Benny was eliminated halfway through tonight's show.
Online and text voting closed after 24 hours just after 9:30pm, and and the show's host Dominic Bowden announced that Jackie had taken out the competition.
Although Jackie found herself kicked out during boot camp, she was brought back to join the competition during the judges retreat after a Facebook page was set up to bring her back into the competition.
Since being brought back into the competition she has never found herself in the bottom two.
Now after 10 weeks of competition Jackie has now been crowned the first ever winner of The X Factor NZ.
Each of the three finalists reprised their audition songs at the start of the show: Whenua sang Sam Cooke's 'A Change is Gonna Come', Jackie took on Bon Iver's 'Skinny Love', and Benny gave a rendition of Outkast's 'Hey Ya'.
The top 13 also performed together, singing Daft Punk and Pharell's 'Get Lucky'.
After the winner was announced, Jackie performed her new single 'It's Worth It'.
The other X Factor finalists were:
Moorhouse
Cassie Henderson
Gap5
Tom Batchelor
Anna Wilson
Maaka Fiso
Fletcher Mills
L.O.V.E.
Taye Williams
Eden Roberts
Jackie has won a recording contact with Sony Music, along with a Ford Kuga.
Her single is available on iTunes now.
3 News
source: newshub archive
