14 DAY TRIAL // With Dannii Minogue temporarily out of the immensely popular television show the X Factor, replacements had to be brought in for auditions. The first was former Ginger Spice Geri Haliwell, whose presence on the panel was received with boos and sneers instead of wild applause. The same happened to Natalie Imbruglia the other day, when auditions had to be halted, AceShowbiz informs.
We were also telling you over the weekend that Halliwell’s remarks during X Factor auditions were booed by contestants and members of the audience. At the time, it was believed this was just an initial reaction to seeing Minogue’s seat occupied by someone else and that things would eventually calm down. Natalie Imbruglia got to experience on her own when she was mocked and ridiculed by two contestants present at auditions.
“Auditions for Simon Cowell’s hit UK talent show The X Factor were halted on Monday, June 14 when two singing wannabes jeered at guest judge Natalie Imbruglia. The ‘Torn’ hitmaker agreed to appear on the judging panel at an audition in Birmingham, England, filling in for pregnant pop star Dannii Minogue,” AceShowbiz says. Things went just fine before she actually got to sit down with the rest of the members of the panel, when she was openly targeted and mocked by two contestants.
“But when two teenage contestants received negative comments from Imbruglia, they taunted the Australian singer by shouting, ‘Who are you?’ An audience member tells Britain’s The Sun, ‘Simon stopped them and said one was better than the other, but they were both pretty awful. Natalie piped up (saying) that they weren’t very good and one of them just snapped, ‘Sorry, who are you?’ Poor Natalie couldn’t believe it and Simon told them they had a bad attitude’,” the e-zine goes on to say.
Producers on the show were forced to cut in and help things quiet down. Contacted for comment, a spokesperson for X Factor chooses to play it coy, confirming the reports without actually doing so by saying that the situation was at one point “a bit heated.”