Last year, influencer LadBaby beat The Beatles’ UK Christmas No 1 record with five years at the top in a row.
Real name Mark Hoyle, who raised profits from his charity singles for the food bank charity The Trussell Trust, made the announcement today that he won’t be trying for a sixth time.
Speaking with Metro.co.uk, he said: “After five amazing years we’ve decided to pass the baton over to the Great British public and we’re not going for Christmas number one this year.
“We never expected it to be five, I’ll be totally honest. It’s one of those things that just happened over the years and we thought it was amazing that the public got behind us in the way that they did.”
LadBaby added: “Five years ago when we started this, we knew the importance of food banks in this country and we wanted to raise funds and awareness for that so we did that one [song], that was lovely.”
Now that the YouTuber has dropped out of the UK Christmas No 1 race there’s been a shake-up in the odds.
Coral bookmakers’ John Hill said: “After LadBaby announced he will not be targeting the Christmas number one single this year, we now make The Pogues odds-on to land the top spot on Christmas Day with Fairytale Of New York, 36 years after the single was released.”
The Pogues’ festive classic has become the favourite while singer Shane MacGowan recovers after being hospitalised.
As it stands these are the odds for UK Christmas No 1: 4-5 The Pogues, 6-1 Girls Aloud, 8-1 Wham, 10-1 Adele, 10-1 Ed Sheeran, 10-1 Mariah Carey, 12-1 Andrea Bocelli, 12-1 JKVE, 12-1 Taylor Swift, 12-1 Sidemen, 12-1 Sam Ryder, 16-1 The Beatles.