Nicole Appleton chosen as guest judge for Louis Walsh on X Factor

will join

as a guest mentor on

, and help the Irish judge decide which singing contestants will make it through to the live shows.The former

singer will fly out to France to join Louis for the "Judge's House" stage of the singing competition.Nicole will be sharing her talent and knowledge with the music manager, and help Louis whittle down his last six contestants from his "Boys" category to just three. The hopefuls will then go on to perform to a 4,000-strong, live audience at Wembley Arena.

The decision to take on the new TV project may have surprised fans, but seems like a good move for Nicole.The mother-of-one has had a heartache of a summer. Nicole, 38, has been keeping a low-profile since the news broke that her husband

had

with New York-based journalist Liza Ghorbani.Liam is said to have now fallen for his former personal assistant Debbie Gwyther, and has reportedly

to end his five-year marriage to Nicole. The couple have one son together, 12-year-old Gene.

Sceptics, meanwhile, have said that the

producers and

are capitalising on Nicole's very public break-up to gain ratings."Nicole has hardly done any TV work in the last few years, so it’s interesting that she is doing this when she is going through such a huge trauma," a source told

."Simon Cowell and X Factor rarely miss a chance to get some publicity and they know getting Nicole on is bound to be a ratings winner."