Picture this: it’s 2015 and social media (specifically Twitter) has blown up following the airing of one of the most infamous episodes of X factor ever to be on television. Curious, you click on someone’s tweet detailing the verbal bullying some niche pop singer named Natalia Kills unveiled on to the contestant, Joe Irvine. Her criticism was essentially considered abusive, rude, and dramatic due to the fact that Joe wore a suit for his audition. You wonder what she said, so you search for it and come faced with this:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am just going to state the obvious. We have a doppelgänger in our midst. I — 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 — 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 to my opinion. I’m just going to 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! I think you look because you’re dressed as my husband!

If you’re anything like me during that time — an easily swayed and impressionable teenager quick to join bandwagons and online trends, you start tweeting yourself and even tagging Natalia, mocking her and telling her she’s the biggest piece of shit in the world. If you’re super angry, you might even tell her to kill herself. You like and retweet dozens and dozens of tweets sharing the same sentiments towards her as you. A sense of pride overwhelms you. You beat immorality that day. You stood up righteously against an evil celebrity. You feel good.

Interesting scenario right? It was the exact situation thousands of other people went through during that time.

Following the incident, Natalia and her husband were dropped from the show, and Natalia’s relationship with her label became nonexistent. Kills fell out of the public eye, and as time went on everyone forgot all about it. Well, sort of. Desperate for views, modern YouTubers still create 10-minute videos detailing the incident — seemingly regurgitating everything that has already been said by past YouTubers and online pop-culture forums — and unintentionally encouraging pre-teens and angered adults to reignite a string of hate towards Natalia in her social media posts.

In 2024, there are still even reposts of the episode on various social media like TikTok and Reddit. And, unsurprisingly, commenters still comment as if the situation just barely happened.

While it is fair to see her criticism (if you can call it that) as rude and bad-mannered, there’s much more to the story than people think.

Four days after the episode aired, Natalia publicly apologized to Joe . An article by Billboard was published in which states that “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.” She also offered an olive branch to the shamed contestant. “Joe,” she writes, “I hope you can forgive me and I wish you all the best! Be natural, unconventional and be you!”

To many people, a public apology wasn’t enough to absolve her of responsibility. However, here’s something a little bit more interesting:

An article in 2016 shares Natalia’s words, “I was approached to be personality on X Factor New Zealand, which lead to a publicity stunt resulting in a viral media storm,” and that she could not defend herself due to “wide-reaching legal gagging-order”.

As we all know, Hollywood and the entertainment industries are infested with publicity stunts. Natalia — while still responsible for her own words — essentially exposed two things regarding the situation, 1) she was clearly approached and encouraged to say something outrageous to bring in more views and ratings 2) she signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) which basically prohibits her from going into detail on what happened behind the scenes.

With all of this in mind, plus the fact that she apologized, is it really so inept as to suggest that she should be granted a little bit of leniency?

Bullying and public humiliation can legitimately traumatize someone. It was reported in 2016 that Joe Irvine still felt some type of way towards what happened. I am in no way suggesting that he should build a bridge over it, however, he also explicitly said, as the article recites, that, “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.”

Multiple things can be true at once: Joe can feel disheartened and hurt over what happened, Natalia can still be responsible for going overboard, and those behind X Factor should also be held accountable for pushing Natalia to cause some sort of attention-grabbing drama.

With all the pieces of the puzzle together, does the picture seem bursting with red and anger, or does it appear more gray than people assume? In my humble opinion, still sending death threats and hate towards Natalia (now named Teddy Sinclair) is a massive overreaction and counterproductive. In response to some defending of Sinclair, I see the rebuttal “but she chose to say it! She didn’t have to!” often repeated. While it is true, it is also entirely possible that her NDA stated that a publicity stunt to ignite drama surrounding a contestant was no longer voluntary; legally, she would have to make such a fuss about Joe’s suit, or even his shoes.

If that wasn’t the case, then yes, she probably did not think through the implications of causing such a scene. She could have figured it would bring in some new fans for herself, or even planned to apologize to the contestant afterwards. We simply do not know. It was a very huge mistake.

But we can’t claim we don’t make mistakes either, right?

Anyway, the facts are that she still apologized and was encouraged to do the stunt, and even though that doesn’t necessarily call for an I Love Teddy party, I think some humanity and understanding should be warranted.

Before ending this post, I want to bring up the fact that Simon Cowell, famously known for being full of poorly-done botox and scraping the bottom of the barrel to find the next One Direction, said on Natalia’s scandal, “It was hateful … It didn’t even make sense.” Pardon my lack of formality regarding this, but I find that hilarious considering that Simon is known to be uncivil and too keen to insult contestants.

Why then, is it “funny” and “cool” when Simon insults contestants, but “disgusting” and “bullying” when Natalia Kills does it once?

Regardless of all of this, to this day, Teddy Sinclair (she changed her name after marrying her husband) still writes and records music. Despite all the vitriol thrown her way, her work is constantly praised on social media. Trouble is known to be one of the best pop albums in the last 20 years. The debut EP by her new band, Cruel Youth, has been met with positive reactions all over the internet. Love her, hate her, but at the end of the day.. she knows how to serve.