JLS were "devastated" when Simon Cowell refused to sign them

The `Everybody In Love` hitmakers - who finished second to Alexandra Burke on `The X Factor` in 2008 - admitted while being turned down by the music mogul was hard, they now think it was the "best thing that could have happened".

Aston Merrygold - who is joined n the band by Oritse Williams, Marvin Humes and Jonathan `JB` Gill - said: "When we didn`t win `The X Factor` we were totally gutted. We thought we were going to win. And in the hour after the result and the show ending, we got together, knocked on Simon`s door and begged him to sign us.

"He wouldn`t because his policy was only to sign the winner. It was devastating. We had to pick ourselves up and look around the business and make our own deal with a record company. Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened."

However, the boy band - who have endorsed their own range of condoms - put their success down to running JLS as a "business".

Marvin added in an interview with Live magazine: "Each one of us was hungry and focused to succeed. Yes, we wanted fame, yes we wanted money and success but we always knew it came at a price.

"I think if any of us didn`t know exactly what we were doing, we wouldn`t be sitting here. This isn`t a band, it`s a business and each of us works at it 24/7. That`s the deal. None of us is stupid, each of us knows it could all end tomorrow so we have to maximise what we have when we have it."

sections: Celebrities