X FACTOR reject Gamu Nhengu may be facing deportation from the UK after it emerged she may have been dropped from the show over fears her visa was about to run out.

Today’s Daily Mirror reports that the 18-year-old Zimbabwean was about to see her visa expire, and that to avoid any embarrassing withdrawals during the show’s live finals, judge Cheryl Cole was instructed not to put her through.

The Mirror quotes a source as saying “Cheryl didn’t have much of a say in the matter. It was made clear that Gamu shouldn’t be put through because they had issues with her, including the visa.”

Cole instead decided to controversially put through acts Katie Waissel and Cher Lloyd – with the former having twice forgotten her words at various audition stages, and the latter having been unable to sing during the Judges’ Houses stage with a throat infection.

Furthermore, Waissel – who also sings under the name Lola Fontaine – has an album deal in the United States, an arrangement that arguably rules her ineligible for entry into the competition.

But now it has emerged that Nhengu may not have been judged on her merits – and, when each judge is asked to put through a wild card entry next week, Nhengu will not be Cole’s choice.

Cole has since sought to offload some of the controversy over her choices, saying that she trusted the advice of Black Eyed Peas rapper Will.I.Am – who helped her to make her Judges’ Houses picks – ahead of her own.

The rapper had told her that putting through Lloyd and Waissel were “risks worth taking”.

Nhengu, who lives in Clackmannanshire in Scotland with her nother Noktutula, stays in the UK on a two-year visa, and said she had not had a chance to speak to her mother about its renewal.”

The deportation affair is similar to that of Zimbabwean former Big Brother 6 contestant Makosi Musambasi, who lived in the UK on a working visa and was twice threatened with expulsion having given up her job to appear in the show.

Death threats

The Sun reports that Cole has begun receiving death threats after dropping the popular Zimbabwean – who was a source of controversy herself when her initial audition was autotuned.

The threat – circulated via BlackBerry Messenger – read:

I’ve never felt like dis over xfactor until u told gambu [sic] she is not going to the live show.

Dat cheryl was da biggest mistake of your life. U want to act innocent on tv like you don’t know wat ur doing. But we all know how racist you are.

Wat u have now done is f*** up every white girls lives who’s silly mothers dat named der child cheryl. Cuz I’m just going to f***** bang drop dem and dey won’t even know why.

You are a hater. You can’t sing 2 save your life. So to make urself happy you want to get rid off all the good singers you know will make you look s***. Nobody wants to buy ur album.

The rant implies that Cole’s decision to drop the singer was racially motivated – Cole was found not guilty of racially aggravated assault in 2003, but convicted of assault occasioning bodily harm.