You remember Steve Brookstein? He won the first ever series of The X Factor. That was, oh, about 10 years ago. Not that he likes to bring it up.

That’s right. In surely one of the most poorly judged tweets ever, Steve decided to compare his fleeting chart success with the 7/7 bombings (or at least his complete obliviousness to them at the time).

A few months later, Steve was dropped by his record label and has been struggling to stay in the spotlight sans Simon Cowell ever since – a struggle he details in his autobiography Getting Over The X.

It’s fair to say the twittersphere was outraged by Steve’s self-centred remarks.

Those were the more polite responses.

Meanwhile, a lot of people in the Twitter feeding frenzy wondered how Steve had incorporated New York and Barcelona in the same trip.

Which kind of missed the point even more.

Anyway, having shot off a few responses to some of his online critics, and even found himself some supporters…

Steve then took to Facebook with a longer explanation about his first tweet – how he didn’t mean to disrespect the victims of the terror attacks, and how he wasn’t actually “celebrating” at the time anyway.

Apparently it’s all in his book.

“We all have an idea of what we were doing at an important event. 9/11 i was staying at a friend’s house and I was in Dixons, Putney to watch the events unfold,” the post began.

“7/7 was a weird one. I had an awful June. I had been banned from interviews after doing a couple of interviews that the record label disapproved of and so Eileen and I went away for a few days. First Barcelona then straight onto New York.

“All I remember was I was at the airport when we heard the terrible news. For me, 10 years ago brings back bad memories of media manipulation, lies and public humiliation. I totally missed the news about 7/7.

Steve Brookstein and Eileen Hunter
Steve and then girlfriend (now wife) Eileen Hunter (Rebecca Reid/PA)

“Today I used my 140 characters on twitter to say that. Anyone who has read my book knows I didn’t celebrate my single or album success. So the comments that it was some kind of ‘humblebrag’ are totally false – it was sarcasm.

“It comes as no surprise that the media that ignored my book and my revelations about tabloid media, Max Clifford, historic abuse and bullying have all jumped on this tweet.

“Obviously, my troubles don’t compare to those who have lost a loved one in London on July 7th 2005, but this does’t stop people with an agenda trying to twist it to continue the vilification that I’ve endured since falling out with Cowell in 2005.

“My book was pretty much ignored last year and still went to number one on kindle and yet the press pick up on a tweet. Work it out for yourself.”

Steve Brookstein
Steve performing in 2005 (Yui Mok/PA)

Of course, at the end of the day, whether you feel sorry for Steve, hate the guy, or don’t even know who he is, a lot of people have pointed out that this storm in a Twitter teacup has taken a lot of focus away from the real issues today.