Dami Im performing U2's One on The X Factor
She is the darling of The X Factor, loved by the Minogue sisters and one of the favourites to win this year's series on Channel Seven. But when Dami Im was nine years old, Australia was a much tougher place to be.
Newly arrived in Brisbane from South Korea, she couldn't speak English and was teased terribly by the other children at her primary school.
People made fun of me and thought I was stupid because I couldn't speak properly. 
"People made fun of me and some people thought I was stupid because I couldn't speak properly," she says. "But I played piano during assembly and they were like, 'wow, she's really good' and that's when people stopped looking down at me."
Dami Im moved to Australia at nine years of age.
Dami Im moved to Australia at nine years of age.
Im, 24, migrated to Australia with her mother and younger brother Kenny while her dad stayed in South Korea to send the family money.
Advertisement
"He only came over during the school holidays for, like, one week. It must have been so hard, there was a lot of sacrifice," Im says. "I was so young, too, it was really hard to understand what was going on."
Now, says Im, it's exciting to see barriers being broken down for Asian-Australian pop musicians. Her popularity on the show follows the online success of Korean-Australian twin sisters Sonia and Janice Lee, aka Jayesslee, who have 1.5 million followers on YouTube.
Im says her journey as a musician followed a rewarding but conservative path – from starting the piano at five, she eventually graduated with first class honours in music from the University of Queensland – but she couldn't deny her love of pop music.
As a teenager she recorded herself singing and wasn't impressed. "I thought I'd be really good but it sounded really bad, so my hobby was to keep training myself, and listening to myself on my computer. I was obsessed with it, I just wanted to sound like the singers I listened to."
She says she sang tracks line by line, over and over again, until she felt it sounded right. "That's how I improved, gradually – I recommend it to anyone who wants to sing."
Im eventually built up the courage to audition for The X Factor. "I was putting it off, I was afraid of trying new things ... but then I thought I should try something before it was too late."
She has since wowed television audiences and Seven's panel of judges, including her mentor Dannii Minogue and guest mentor Kylie Minogue. Her stunning performance of U2's One in the live finals last Sunday received a standing ovation.
"I wasn't expecting such a huge reaction," she says of the audience's response to her cover version. "It just felt so good because I wasn't expecting it at all."
Im's parents now live together, spending part of the year in Australia and part in South Korea, and they were overseas when their daughter first made it onto the show.
"They didn't realise how huge it would be," Im says, with a laugh. The singer has also had the close support of her husband of 10 months, Noah Kim.
"We've talked about it and The X Factor is a huge opportunity but it is also not the only thing I will be doing in my life," she says. "I don't know when the competition is going to end for me, but I'm going to be singing for the rest of my life."