Aston Merrygold

Growing up in Bretton

Aston Iain Merrygold was born in Peterborough on 13 February 1988 and raised in the city by his mother, Siobhan, and his stepfather, Orjan. His biological father was Jamaican; his mother is Northern Irish. Counting his biological and step families, he grew up one of seven, with five brothers and a sister.

He went to Jack Hunt School in Bretton, and for a while the plan was football rather than pop. He was good enough at it to play for England at the European Youth Games while still at school, and by his own account he expected sport to be the career. Performing was the other thing he did, in school productions and anywhere else that would have him, and it was performing that got there first.

He has spoken openly since about the racist bullying he experienced growing up, and later became an ambassador for the anti-bullying charity BeatBullying.

Rockin' Robin, and a job in Fletton

In 2002, aged fourteen, he appeared on ITV's Stars in Their Eyes as Michael Jackson, singing "Rockin' Robin", and came second. Jackson was, and remained, the reference point: Merrygold later had him tattooed on his arm.

The television appearance turned into work. He took a job as an entertainer at Pop Star Studios in Fletton, on the south side of the river, and left school in 2004 straight into a role on the ITV children's programme Fun Song Factory alongside presenter Laura Hamilton. He was sixteen, and already a working performer.

Four lads and a talent show

Somewhere in the round of auditions he met Marvin Humes, and the two stayed in touch. When Humes joined a group called UFO, put together by Oritsé Williams, he told Merrygold to come and try out. Merrygold and JB Gill were both recruited, and the four of them renamed themselves JLS, short for Jack the Lad Swing.

In 2008 they auditioned for the fifth series of The X Factor and finished second to Alexandra Burke. Back in Peterborough, the Telegraph ran the sort of headline local papers save for one of their own going national. Coming second turned out not to matter in the slightest.

Number ones

Signed to Epic in January 2009, JLS went on to five UK number one singles and a number one album, and had sold more than ten million records by the end of 2013. They won two BRIT Awards, for British Breakthrough Act and for British Single with "Beat Again", along with multiple MOBOs, released four studio albums and a concert film, and toured arenas for the better part of five years.

Going it alone

Merrygold had already started stepping out on his own, joining Got to Dance on Sky One as a judge in 2013 alongside Ashley Banjo and Kimberly Wyatt. In September 2014 he signed a solo deal with Warner Bros., and the following July released "Get Stupid", which reached the top ten in Australia and went platinum there.

A debut album, Showstopper, was announced and then shelved. What arrived instead was the Precious EP in April 2017, followed by the single "Trudy". He has been candid that solo work let him be more expressive than a four-way vote ever allowed.

The Strictly result

In August 2017 he joined the fifteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with Janette Manrara. He was one of the better dancers in the field, scoring a 38 for his paso doble, and on 5 November he lost the dance-off to Mollie King and went out in seventh week, tenth place.

The reaction was immediate and loud enough to become the story of the series, with viewers taking to social media in numbers to object. He returned to the ballroom for the 2018 Christmas special, again with Manrara, and won it.

Reunion, Tin Man, tour bus

Television kept coming: Almost Never on CBBC in 2019, third place on The Masked Singer UK as Robin, a judging seat on the Irish talent show The Big Deal. Then in 2020, seven years after the last show, JLS announced they were back.

The reunion has run longer than anyone expected. Their 2025 Club Is Alive hits tour played sixteen sold-out dates, finishing with two nights at the O2 in London, where the group joined the venue's 21 Club for reaching twenty-one performances there. In 2024 Merrygold took a different direction again, playing the Tin Man in the UK tour of The Wizard of Oz and then reprising it in the West End at the Gillian Lynne Theatre.

His own Grateful Tour ran through spring 2026, opening in Manchester on 19 March and closing in London on 4 April, with a Belfast date later that month. He married Sarah Richards, formerly a JLS backing dancer, in 2022; they have three children.

Selected work

• 2002Stars in Their EyesITV. Second place, as Michael Jackson.
• 2004Fun Song FactoryITV children's series.
• 2008The X FactorSeries five. Runner-up with JLS.
• 2009JLSDebut album. UK number one.
• 2010Outta This WorldSecond JLS album.
• 2011JLS: Eyes Wide OpenConcert film.
• 2011JukeboxThird JLS album.
• 2012EvolutionFourth JLS album.
• 2013Got to DanceSky One. Judge, series four.
• 2015Get StupidDebut solo single. Platinum in Australia.
• 2017PreciousSolo EP, Warner Bros.
• 2017Strictly Come DancingBBC One. Series fifteen, with Janette Manrara.
• 2019Almost NeverCBBC. Jordan.
• 2021The Masked Singer UKITV. Third place, as Robin.
• 2021The Big DealVirgin Media One. Judge.
• 2024The Wizard of OzUK tour and West End. Tin Man.
• 2025The Club Is Alive: Hits TourJLS. Sixteen dates, closing at the O2.
• 2026The Grateful TourSolo UK and Ireland tour.

Follow the trail

Peterborough has produced its share of performers, but few whose route out of the city is quite this traceable. The places are ordinary, which is rather the point.