Nicole Scherzinger has revealed she refused to audition for a TV talent show when she was starting out.

The former Pussycat Doll - who is now a judge on The X Factor - told Notion magazine how her mother tried to persuade her to audition for Popstars, but she didn't feel she would be what they were looking for.

Nicole said: "I was so theatre at the time I was like, 'I am not going to be a Spice Girl'. That is just not me.

"I mean I'm a Spice Girls fan now, but at the time I only wore black and I was Goth. I would have been Goth Spice. Ethnic Chanting Spice, that's who I thought I was."

Nicole, 34, embraces her Goth look in a black and white photoshoot for the magazine, posing in leather with scraped back hair, heavy dark make-up and a studded ring.

Meanwhile, the singer also admitted she turned down the offer of recording We Found Love, which went on to be a worldwide number one for Rihanna and Calvin Harris.

She said: "I passed on We Found Love. I got the demo of that song and I was busy at the time.

"They'd sent me a few dance tracks and I wasn't able to get to them and I was like, 'Oh, there's so much dance and I want to take a break from it.' That was my fault. I slept on it."