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Sacked NZ judges apologise -but who is to blame?

As X Factor judges finally apologise, who is to blame: judges, producers or the format itself?

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Sacked X Factor judges Natalia Kills and Willy Moon have apologised to singer Joe Irvine, after a week of media scrutiny and criticism.

On Sunday the pair slammed the New Zealand singer leading to an audience backlash and dismissal by Mediaworks.

The husband wife team took to social media to apologise:

“At last! I am relieved that I’m finally able to break the silence … xoxo,” Kills posted.

“A lot goes on behind the scenes of a reality TV show and you see isn’t always the whole story. The show brought me on to bring my passion, dramatic expression and perspective. I was encouraged to be outspoken and things got out of hand. Joe, I hope you can forgive me and I wish you all the best! Be natural, unconventional and be you!”

Willy Moon tweeted: “The reality of ‘reality’ TV is that there’s a lot the viewer doesn’t see.

“The show encourages judges to be forthright and highly opinionated. It went too far and I never intended to single anyone out. I wish the contestants, crew, and particularly Joe, all the best.”

However the suggestion that they were encouraged to slam Irvine raises further questions: are they suggesting Producers encouraged their behaviour? Did they misunderstand the line between robust opinion and ‘bullying?’ Or are they attempting to deflect the attention towards the production?

It’s hard to know at this point in time (but such things generally become clearer when the heat has died down).

But the format itself must also bear some responsibility.

Unlike previous talent shows such as Australian Idol, this is a show that pits team against team, encouraging judges to view acts as competition to their own desire to “win” the series.

Natalie Bassingthwaighte and Shelton Woolright, drummer of rock band I am Giant, have joined the series as their replacements.

Source: News Corp

11 Responses

  1. Still not understanding what the big deal is… Didn’t they just call the contestant cheesy and disgusting?? Sure that’s not nice but we have heard worse from Simon Cowell and dicko. There must be more to it.

    1. It was a bit more than that… Willy Moon suggested that Joe was going to scrape off people’s faces, attach it to his own and stab everyone in the audience…

  2. You’d have to wonder how Dicko and his comments to Paulini in the first series of Idol about appropriate clothing and shedding pounds would’ve gone had it happened this year instead of the first season of idol back in 2003

    The NZ X factor thing kinda seems like one of those things were in trying to court controversy it’s blown right up instead of getting the publicity they would’ve been hoping for…. Has to be a producer who put them up to it, yet because they’re a real life couple and the pure nastiness behind the comment it rightly came across and got called out as bullying

    Perhaps if there was twitter back when Dicko made his comments in 2003 the result maybe been the same, instead I remember ACA and TT ran stories on it and gave the show even higher ratings…no doubt what the NZXF producers were more expecting that result….publicity not pariahs

  3. I mean, I think it’s pretty common for one of the judges to be the “nasty” one. However, their poor choice of words is on them, and they should take responsibility for that.
    She could have said something like, “I don’t agree with how you’ve been styled etc, I want to see the real you” and they still would be on the show.

  4. Why did the only say sorry now, what about the next day or even after show??

    Throughout the entire Australian series I’ve never seen anything like it not even from the more controversial Kyle Sandilands or Mel B

  5. The producers have already been accused of interfering during the Judges Auditions by a YouTube vlogger who went to a audition session… But I do not think that they would as far as to tell them to “bully” someone, if so, I am utterly disgusted.

    Another thing is that there was “conspiracy theory” surrounding the departure of Kills and Moon. At the opening of Sunday’s show, the host made a reference to the “Four Chair Challenge” – meaning the judges – he said that “we can’t swap them out – just yet”, people started looking too far into this thinking that this was planned but I think it’s a pure coincidence.

    1. Exactly. Although there is some truth in what they’re saying the show has run dozens of versions around the world with judges able to get very close to the line without crossing it. I think here the pack mentality came in with a husband naturally having to back up his wife (even if she’d basically just slammed him by saying a contestant she found to be awful was copying him) – if one comment hadn’t been followed by the other it probably wouldn’t have become what it did.

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