Leona Lewis has revealed she chose to leave Simon Cowell’s record label because he wanted her to do an album of covers.

The 30-year-old singer won The X Factor in 2006 and went on to release four albums with Syco. But they parted ways last year and it was reported that she had become the latest in a long line of X Factor winners to be dumped by Simon.

But Leona told Sirius XM host Larry Flick it was her decision.

Leona Lewis
Simon Cowell was wowed by Leona’s impressive voice (Joe Giddens/PA)

She said: “I felt like I just needed to move on. We had differences. The label wanted me to do an album of covers, and I just felt like I had not gotten to the point where I wanted to do that.

“I’d already done a Christmas album and done a lot of covers and had so much fun with it, then I was ready to do my own album, a studio album again.

“That opportunity wasn’t there, so I decided to leave and do a record myself. I literally didn’t know what I was going to do, who I was going to get signed to, or what was going to happen.”

The Bleeding Love singer has collaborated on a new album of original songs with German music producer Toby Gad, who has worked with Beyonce, Fergie, Nicole Scherzinger and Selena Gomez. She has also signed a new record deal with Island Records in the UK and Def Jam in the US.

The album, called I Am, will be released globally in September.