Mark Ronson: I didn’t know about Fleur East's X Factor cover of Uptown Funk

Mark Ronson has revealed he was “totally blindsided” by the decision to let X Factor finalist Fleur East perform his song Uptown Funk on the show, weeks before its scheduled UK release date.

The songwriter and producer claims Simon Cowell and X Factor bosses did not ask his permission to use the track — and the first he heard about it was from Twitter.

Ronson feared it could have scuppered his chances of success with the song. But East’s performance prompted his label Columbia UK to bring forward the release by five weeks. The decision paid off as his version went straight in at No 1 on Sunday.

In an exclusive interview with the Standard, Ronson said: “I had no idea she was going to perform it. I was totally blindsided and at first I was like, ‘What?’

“I saw it in my Twitter timeline — a friend tweeted it during the show. I haven’t been in England so I haven’t watched the show or anything.

“I was like, ‘What does he mean? That’s weird!’ You think we’d have seen some kind of sign-off on it. Then I kind of twigged — don’t they put out the songs on X Factor on iTunes that night? That’s when I just had this pit in my stomach... I was like, ‘Man — I hope the label over there knows what they are doing! Because this girl’s about to have a big hit with our song!’

“I thought, oh man, this song that we’ve spent six or seven months on is potentially going to be eclipsed by the other version — in the country that I live in and [is] super important to me.” He admitted he thought: “What the f*** is going on, can we please put out our record?”

But having landed his first UK No 1, Ronson is philosophical about the situation. He added: “Everyone kind of ended up with what they want. I got to have the record out, X Factor, the girl, she had her moment ... It’s been a crazy week.”

Uptown Funk is the first single from Ronson’s fourth album, Uptown Special, out next month. Spokesmen for Columbia and Cowell were not available for comment.