Natalia Kills & Willy Moon Took This Way Too Far

This is probably one the stranger news stories you'll come across this week: On Sunday, pop artist Natalia Kills and her husband, singer Willy Moon, were both fired as judges from The X Factor New Zealand following a bizarre on-air rant against Joe Irvine, one of the show's contestants. Trust me, you've never heard Simon Cowell say anything like this before.

After watching Irvine perform, Kills felt as though he had jacked Moon's style — and she was furious. Here's what she said:

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm just going to state the obvious, we have a doppleganger in our midst. 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? You're a laughing stock. It's cheesy, it's disgusting. I personally found it absolutely artistically atrocious. I am embarrassed to be sitting here in your presence having to even dignify you with an answer of my opinion.

Next, Moon weighed in:

Yeah, Joe, to me, it just feels a little bit cheap and absurd. I mean, it's like Norman Bates dressing up in his mother's clothing, it's just a little bit creepy. I feel like you're going to stitch someone's skin to your face and then kill everybody in the audience. But, do you.

What?! But the awkward didn't stop there, because Kills wasn't finished with Irvine yet:

I'm gonna say it: it's disgusting. You make me sick. It's absolutely disgusting, you have no identity. I can't stand it. I'm ashamed to be here.

As The Guardian reports, Mark Weldon, the chief executive of MediaWorks, the company that owns the network that airs The X Factor New Zealand, had this to say in a statement:

While the judges on X Factor are expected to provide critiques of the performances, we will not tolerate such destructive tirades from any of the judges. Contestants put their all into this competition and they should expect to receive feedback and criticism that is professional and constructive. We no longer have confidence that Kills and Moon are the right people to perform the role of X Factor judges and they will leave the show, effective immediately.

If you ask me, MediaWorks definitely made the right call. Yes, it was Kills and Moon's job to critique contestants, but I think we can all agree that there was a better, more productive way for them to express their (admittedly significant) issues with Irvine's performance. There was no need for their comments to become so aggressive and over-the-top. Unfortunately, they let their emotions get the best of them.

Ironically, Kills, a 28-year-old English artist who has struggled to find success in the music industry for years, has been trending on Twitter ever since the story broke. How does the saying go? There's no such thing as bad publicity? Yeah, that's it. It'll be interesting to see how/if this incident affects the couple's careers in the future.

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