Natalia Kills & Willy Moon first ever X Factor Judges to be sacked in NZ

For about 20 years now there have been televised talent searches.  Popstars first aired in New Zealand in 1999 and saw the creation of True Bliss who went on to have a couple of number 1s and a national your before going their separate ways

The Next franchise was Idol, created by Simon Cowell.  It first made its way to New Zealand in 2003.  Ten years later the Idol franchise has been replaced with X Factor and Got Talent.  The basic premise of these shows is to find the next big artist.  

The second season of NZ's X Factor began airing a few weeks ago on tv3 and has not been without controversy.  First they allowed a contestant on who was a convicted killer.  TV3 was forced to apologise for their decision and said the contestant would not feature.  They kept their word.

Following on from that Judge Willy Moon, originally from Wellington and Married to co judge Natalia Kills was accused on Sunday of abusing a woman in a Kingsland bakery car park.  Apparently he called her a derogatory name I'm not going to repeat here.  

Then last night Natalia ripped into contestant Joe Irvine and said he lacked originality and that she was embarrassed to be in his presence.  She said he shouldn't wear a suit (it should be noted just about every man owns a suit).  Willy chimed in and said that he thought Joe was going to kill the entire audience.

The comment generated such a reaction that a petition was started on Change.org to have Natalia removed, so by association, and because of his abusive rant on Sunday there were calls for his removal too.  Sponsors McDonalds and Two Degrees were very unhappy and contacted TVWorks to have action taken.

Just after midday it was announced that Kills and Moon had both been dumped as judges and in all likelihood they'll never work in New Zealand again unless they seriously transform themselves but the best thing they can do is to stay out of the limelight for a while and take a long hard look in the mirror.  I won't comment on Natalia and Willy's personal backgrounds but it all adds up to their abusive rants.

The new judges have not yet been announced but it looks like Ginny Blackmore (whose album is out next month) is a top contender.

The problem with these shows, and I watched some bad audition videos as research is that is the shows format.  People will get abused, not to the extent that Natalia laid into Joe.  Not even Simon would have done something like that, not even when he was the mean judge.  He did actually have some moments when he was kind to the contestants.

The sad part of this event is that while standing up for bullying is excellent, NZ has lowered themselves on social media and there has been major vitriol directed at Natalia and Willy.  While I don't think they'd care, bullying the bullies helps nobody and doesn't send the message that bullying isn't to be tolerated.  People should simple say the bullying isn't okay, take action and then move on.  Natalia and Willy behaved very badly but calling them names in return just denigrates the name called and lowers them to that level.

Moving on though, let this be a lesson that there is a line between bullying and entertainment and bullying should never be tolerated regardless of whether or not you truly do despise someone and their actions.  The only true way to put an end to reality TV bullying is simply to stop auditioning.  If nobody auditions and nobody watches the shows will end.

You attract more flies with honey than you do vinegar.