Natalia Kills and Willy Moon have been dubbed 'hypocrites'. Photo / Norrie Montgomery.
Natalia Kills and Willy Moon have been dubbed 'hypocrites'. Photo / Norrie Montgomery.
Axed X Factor judges and controversial husband and wife duo Natalia Kills and Willy Moon showed no mercy towards contestant Joe Irvine on Sunday night, accusing the contestant of "copying the style" of Willy Moon during his performance.
Kills was "disgusted" while Moon chimed in with a Norman Bates Psychoreference, dubbing Irvine's performance both "absurd and creepy ... I feel like you're going to stitch someone's skin to your face and then kill everyone in the audience".
Public outrage towards the behaviour displayed by Moon and Kills saw the pair unceremoniously dismissed from the show.
Ironically, the former judging duo and staunch advocates for fighting the good fight for all "artists that respect intellectual property and individuality" aren't all that original after all.
Kills, who had plenty to say about her stance on "originality" has since been repeatedly called out for her own style-stealing via Twitter.
The 28-year-old Bradford-born singer had no quarrels taking style and fashion cues from a range of different artists and famous faces, including Lady Gaga, Jessie J, M.I.A, Madonna, Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka and even Disney's Dora the Explorer.
Harmonic comparisons between Kills' song Trouble and Sting's 1985 hit We Work The Black Seam are hard to dismiss, and Moon's Yeah Yeah music video is almost an exact copy of Prisencolinensinainciusol from Adriano Celentano and Claudia Mori, a popular and stylized video from 1972.
When overlapped, the music videos bare striking resemblances, while the boundaries of how far is too far when it comes to intellectual property are questionable at best.
The music industry is already under close scrutiny after Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines came under fire for "appropriating" Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit Got To Give It Up, with a high court judge slamming the pair with a hefty $10 million dollar fine.
Music producer Jermaine Dupri says he is also victim to a similar situation. Dupri claims R&B singer Ciara's latest song, I Bet is too close to Usher's U Got It Bad, the 2001 hit Dupri co-produced.
"Ciara's new single is a complete rip-off of Usher's U Got It Bad," Dupri said. "I'm clear on what I made and I'm clear on how music influences people and I'm clear on chord changes and how people move things...It might not be as evident as the Blurred Lines situation, but I believe the same thing happened to me."
During her critique of Joe Irvine's performance, the first of the live shows for X-Factor NZ contestants, Kills jabbed: "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?"
