X FACTOR hit Rachel Hylton has told of her horrific teen life of drug addiction, crime and under-age sex-and revealed her heartache at having three of her five children taken into care.

The 26-year-old last night blew away judges on the ITV talent show with an emotional performance of Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good.

And now, in her first interview, she has told the News of the World how from the age of 11 she really was No Good at all.

"I'm not trying to hide anything. I know I took drugs and I know I committed crimes.

"I'm really remorseful for that. I've come out the other end and want to have a second chance to make life better."

Rachel grew up in a good, loving home in Hackney, east London. Her family despaired when she was expelled from two schools at the age of 11 for violence and began roaming the streets getting into trouble.

She said: "I started to get rebellious. I would run away from home. I lost my virginity when I was 11 to a boy who lived next door to me. He was 14. I also had sex with older men.

"I became promiscuous and started to run away more. I ended up in north London."

When she was 12 Rachel got pregnant by a 28-year-old drug- dealing thug.

"He was done for statutory rape, but I did give my consent. I met him one day on the streets of Tottenham and we'd had relations by the next day. He introduced me to ecstasy and crack," she said.

The baby, a boy, was taken into care soon after he was born.

Rachel said: "I didn't really take to motherhood. I was only 13. My mum took the brunt of looking after him, but then she got really sick with glandular fever.

"Social services were meant to place me and my son in a mother and baby unit. But they didn't do that."

Instead, she was sent to one foster home and her son was placed in another. Rachel said: "I was meant to be having contact, but I put drugs before seeing my son. I would be so high on crack I didn't show up to the visits.

"Some days I couldn't even get out of bed."

At 14, Rachel got into a horrifically abusive relationship with a 27-year-old drug dealer, who she stayed with for three nightmare years.

She said: "He was a drug dealer and he introduced me to heroin. He was so violent he twisted my nose so it still doesn't look right today. He cut me and I've still got the scars.

"He used to tell me I was the devil and was evil. Mentally and physically he used to torture me. He was a nasty piece of work."

The violence didn't stop when she got pregnant. "He would still beat me up," she said.

She had the baby, another boy, when she was 17 and once again saw her child taken into care.

"I only looked after him for a bit because then I went back on drugs," said Rachel, whose second son was also adopted. After the baby was born, the father dumped Rachel and she turned to crime.

She said: "I was broke so I tried to commit a robbery. I tried to snatch a bag off a middle-aged woman."

But the woman's husband caught Rachel and she was arrested. "I got probation for that but I breached it. From that point on I was a complete addict so I would shoplift, do muggings and commit street robberies."

At 18 she got her first jail term-18 months for attempted burglary.

She was pregnant by another drug dealer when she was sent to Holloway and gave birth to a daughter with prison guards stationed outside the hospital room. She said: "I pushed the baby out, they cut the chord and took her away. I didn't get to hold her."

The baby was placed in a foster care and later adopted.

In jail Rachel became pen pals with a prisoner on the Isle of Wight and and hooked up with him on the outside. But when she went back on drugs and breached her probation, she was sent back to jail, where she found out she was pregnant yet again. At this point Rachel finally decided to change her life. Aged 20, she gave birth to her son Tishon and got off drugs.

She said: "I'd broken up with the father. But from that moment on I said, 'Enough is enough.' I changed."

Eighteen months later later Rachel had her fifth child, daughter Tashanee, now four.

The father, a 20-year-old who had been in and out of jail, left her when she was two months pregnant.

"He didn't want me around, so I ended up a single mum again," she said.

But Rachel was soon in another relationship-mercifully a healthy one-with a 44-year-old called Harrison, who she stayed with for four years.

"He's a very nice man and was good to me. He's even been looking after Tashanee while I've been doing things for X Factor. He's been the only decent boyfriend I've ever had."

Rachel now has her life in order and is determined to win X Factor.

"I'm happy to be getting to know me and loving my children. I have my own flat which I keep clean. I'm turning my life around."

She added: I've always been a singer, it's my natural talent. I'm determined to succeed."

Her greatest regret is not having contact with the three children who were taken away from her.

"That's hard to deal with. But from where I've come from to be in the position I'm in now out of all of those thousands of people is beautiful. I feel blessed.

"It's another thing to keep me off drugs. I am so glad X Factor decided not to throw me away even though I have a past."

Last night Simon Cowell gave Rachel his support.

He told the News of the World: "If someone says they've done things they regret, you have to give them a second chance."