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Are you a believer reality television is
100% real? It's not like these reality television
talent shows ever have premeditated moments and hire people that are just for views. Let's briefly look back at the situation for Grammy-nominated Rihanna and Madonna co-writer
Teddy Sinclair of Cruel Youth and the Powder Room fka Natalia Kills/Verbalicious/Verbz/Natalia Keery-Fisher Cappucini and ask, was it justified?
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Around this time of year in 2015,
X-Factor NZ received its chaotic press revolving around a particular assessment for a contestant. It sparked outrage, memes, and a call to action to fire judges Natalia Kills and Willy Moon. White artists including flop right-wing+Brexit supporter/former NK collaborator Frankmusik, Calvin Harris (of Taylor Swift fame),
NZ native Lorde, 'I'm a nice guy who will treat you well and sing vanilla pop songs while looking like a legit troll' Ed Sheeran, the nails-on-a-scratchboard singer from Bastille, and fellow label mate and victim of indie-girl-singing syndrome Ellie Goulding saw a cute little PR opportunity to chime in about the viral event to console the whats-his-name who was the contestant, since they cared so much about him.
In the pop music community, Natalia Kills has been an established singer and songwriter with a couple of albums under her belt, and her song 'Problem' made appearances in commercials and movies, including
Pitch Perfect 2. She's been considered one of the more underrated acts, so the fact that she was even hired to be a judge on a show was quite generous.
THE CASE![]()
"As an artist who respects creative integrity and intellectual property, I am disgusted at how much you have copied my husband, from the hair to the suit. Do you not have any value or respect for originality?" Natalia iconically and kindly concerned.
Okay, I don't need to go in depth about the actual words since it spread like wildfire in its time. I whole-heartedly do agree that Kills went overboard with her words because even though his singing performance was mediocre, the fact she insisted on commenting on his outfit and hair was concerning, to the point where it was strange.
What I want to look at is what were the dynamics that were played around with. During the 'bootcamp' or audition portion of the show, the other judges who reprised their roles on the panel Melanie Blatt and Stan Walker seemed to be the more safer and kinder judges, while Moon and Kills made harsher judgements towards acts that performed poorly. Maybe it's due to the experience and credibility, but infamous tell-it-like-it-is talent show judge and producer
Simon Cowell as probably made his fair share
rude remarks towards contestants for years calling them pathetic and delusional right in front of them, whether it was rightfully so or not. I will say again that his criticisms were pertaining to the talent itself, but the reactionary 'anti-bullying' campaign after Kills' moment is quite ironic for viewers who feed off this certain kind of drama.
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Were Moon and Kills just consistently playing up to their dynamic? It can be brandnewinformation.gif for some people that reality television does not go by script, however producers and writers of these types of shows work towards certain angles and are aware enough to casting people for certain dynamics, even asking contestants for any personal sob stories in their application.
As we see in the pic above, Irvine first auditioned in a very run of the mill type of outfit and came back to a sharp suit and slicked combed-over hair. We all KNOW this look is not special and Natalia is crazy to think her husband should be accredited to it. But the matter of fact is there are TEAMS of people hired backstage in styling, hair, and makeup for both judges and contestants... could have the producers have any possibility of setting him up for the sake of drama? Maybe Kills was given a thumbs up for this instance, but was silenced as soon as it backfired where it was a trending moment on Youtube, Twitter, and news outlets.
THE AFTERMATHKills eventually had public statements and apologies to offer.
In an
interview with Iris, Natalia had something to say.
"I'd have to ask my attorney, but their contracts are air tight so I don't think I'll ever be able to tell the truth about what happened. Too many people get in trouble or lose their jobs. The whole thing was messed up… I mean, the whole thing was a mess.
What's weird is, after the show, we all hugged.
It was all high-fives.
No one expected the public to react the way they did, and I guess everyone had to cover their own asses. The thing I found most bizarre about it all was that for a minute there, the whole world suddenly forgot what "reality tv" really is. It's amusing.. it's confusing...
Unfortunately, a lot of people believe reality tv is complete reality."
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Kills recounts the drama in a public letter.![]()
With NZ Herald,
Joe Irvine recalled the incident:
"When it happened I was mad but I was aware kids would be watching so I fought back the urge to have a go at Willy and Natalia," he says. "It was awful. I wish her and Willy well. I just hope they never do anything so stupid and uncalled for again. I got no assistance from anyone afterwards and
it has left me thinking reality shows are just staged for a big publicity stunt. Anyone appearing on one of these things needs to be mentally prepared for anything."
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Classic internet memes were made![]()
The FALSEHOOD of memes - a twitter pic of former late 2000s pop sensation Lady Gaga in 2014 (left) and Teddy Sinclair in 2011 (right).
Teddy has been accused of copying Gaga for a while (no shade but rightfully so), as if Gaga can claim originality vs. every female artist before ha (Little Monster TW: Madonna).False rumors also ensued for further lashings, saying she was dropped from her record label after the incident, Mrs. Sinclair addressed in a banned source, "I don't know why the media said I 'lost my record deal,'" she wrote. "
I changed management months ago and parted with Cherrytree Management [sic] but I'm … Still on Interscope UMG for now..."
The word is that Natalia legally changed her name right after the incident when the fact is that W*lly Moon nicknamed her Teddy a year before X-Factor (this could be referenced in an Instagram post before X-Factor), and took on his real last name (Sinclair) after they got married. It is not confirmed if she legally did change her name to Teddy before the incident and carried on with her stage name, but 'Natalia' is still her middle name.
Since then Teddy Sinclair faced backlash from celebrities as mentioned above, and till this day constant online death threats, sexual harassment, and bullying on her social media, Youtube music videos. Now she's independent and still writes songs for other artists.
THE VERDICT![]()
- "She's such a narcissistic asshole" - Yes we been knew about our messy b*tch since the songs she wrote in Perfectionist and Trouble.
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- The remarks were uncalled for.
- I still don't like W*lly Moon, divorce ha Teddy!
- "It's a shame, she had bops" - You probably stanned her before but dropped her since this moment. It's time to
#reclaim and not feel
#embarrassed. I
#refuse to let people be guilty for listening to music they enjoy when the artists aren't even that problematic. Sis go ahead and bop, Trouble and Perfectionist are pop gems. Check out ha new stuff with Cruel Youth (new music coming soon).
-People stay empathetic for yts like Irvine, but are we surprised the world villanized WOC Jamaican and Urugruayan Legenddy Sinclaiconic so easily?
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#NataliaKillsListeningParty / post?
Sources: 12 / Me
