In 2011, Devlin auditioned for the eighth series of The X Factor. Her audition was screened on 20 August 2011, where she performed Elton John's "Your Song" in front of judges Louis Walsh, Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland and Tulisa. Her audition was successful as all four judges put her through to bootcamp. After passing the 2 challenges at bootcamp, Devlin progressed to the judges' houses round in Rowland’s Girls category (solo females aged 16–24) and was later put through to the live shows alongside Misha B, Amelia Lily and Sophie Habibis. She performed Coldplay's "Fix You" in week 1 of the live shows and was put through to the next round by Rowland, as there was no public vote in the first week. Devlin topped the public vote more times than any other act, receiving the most public votes for the first four weeks of voting (weeks 2, 3, 4 and 5) and reached the quarter-final (week 8) before ending up in the bottom two with Misha B. She was voted off by Walsh and Tulisa with Rowland refusing to vote between her own acts and Barlow not being given the chance to vote. However voting statistics revealed that Devlin received more votes than Misha B meaning if the result went to deadlock, Devlin would have advanced to the semi-final and Misha B would have been eliminated. Devlin's song in the sing off was "Chasing Cars". During the live shows, Courtney Love tweeted Simon Cowell to offer to give Devlin one of Nirvana's tracks for the show, which ultimately did not occur.
