When Jamie-Lee Church belted out her song on the television show Popstars: The Rivals, pop impresario Pete Waterman was clearly excited.

He said: "Now we're cooking," and she definitely left an impression.

However, after making it through two gruelling rounds of auditions, the 16-year-old from Portslade waved goodbye to her fellow wannabes when the judges decided to let her go.

She was determined not to let fame slip from her grasp.

Now, while viewers are waiting to discover who will be in the final line-up of the television programme, Jamie-Lee is hoping to beat them to the top of the pops with her first single.

The blonde teenager has just nabbed a record deal and is busily recording an R'n'B song called No More with Rinzin Records Ltd in Hickstead.

She said: "Being on Popstars has given me a taste of fame and made me much more determined and hungry for it.

"It was really scary being on there but it has launched my career.

"When I did my first audition for Popstars Pete Waterman said they had been looking for someone like me and he never thought they would find anyone. I sang one line of the Liberty X song Just a Little and he stopped me and said I had got through.

"When I walked out of the room he said, 'Now we're cooking' and went mad.

"On my second audition I went in and Geri Halliwell said 'Wow' before I had opened my mouth."

Jamie-Lee approached Waterman after the show to find out what went wrong.

On discovering it was Louis Walsh, manager of Westlife, who wanted to get rid of her, she knew she still had Waterman's approval and thus the power to impress people in high places.

Jamie-Lee, who left St Mary's Hall school this summer, said: "It was a bit unfair anyway when I did the second song because while I was performing the fire drill went off. Then my throat went dry and I had to do the song again at the end when I was unprepared.

"It's weird watching the remaining girls on the television now. I got on really well with them while we were staying in the hotel in London. They're all really nice."

As well as grooming herself for stardom, Jamie-Lee spends most days grooming the residents of Brighton as a trainee hairdresser at Ash salon.

After a hard day of washing locks and trimming bobs, she dashes over to the Hickstead studio, where she sings for an average of six hours a night alongside rapper MC Dapz.

Jamie-Lee said: "I think I'm cut out for the pop world and all the hard work involved."

Her relationship with glamour model Jordan's boyfriend Scott Sullivan earlier this year has also given her a taste for the high life.

The teenager, who was one of the youngest on the television programme, dumped Scott, 20, after going out with him for two months in the summer but now the playboy is having a relationship with Jordan.

Scott, whose father is a millionaire, is still friends with Jamie-Lee who often goes out with him and Jordan.

She said: "I had known him for about a year before I went out with him. I broke it off when I did because I didn't have enough time and I didn't get on with him in that way. It was more of a friendship."

While Jamie-Lee prepares to up her fame stakes, she is crossing her fingers that her single No More will meet with no more rejection.