After her acerbic rants encouraged by her husband Willy Moon on New Zealand's X Factor, we wondered what Natalia Kills has been up to since her fall.
How To Kill Your Career 101
Remember Natalia Kills, the one who killed her career on the X Factor? After recovering, and making our way out of the YouTube rabbit hole, we couldn't help but consider her relevant for the moment to find out what she's been up to since she was in our recommendations. Here's what we could find.
Let's begin by summarising her demise on prime time television that subsequently reached a "global" audience in 2015. The "Kill My Boyfriend" songstress Natalia, and her fellow musician husband Willy Moon served as judges on the New Zealand version of the X Factor in it's second season.
In case you're oblivious to the show's nature, the platform enables aspiring musicians to audition, perform, and potentially win a recording contract. Although that seems straight forward to fathom, the X Factor was - still is to some - entertaining however, it's not necessarily appreciated for breathtaking vocal performances, or attempts at them.
The production had "many" funny moments due to some contestant's beliefs for success, and the lack of honesty their so called "support network" gave them. Then there's Simon Cowell lol! Simon known for his harsh-at-times, nothing held back, and "let's not beat around the bush" judgement made the show a hit, but he too had "moral limits" when scrutinising acts.
Natalia, and Willy's scathing remarks towards the contestant Joe Irvine were excessively vile, and unwarranted. Natalia began to belittle Joe by calling him a "dopplegänger" as she insisted he copied her husband's image from hair, to dress sense. She considered him a "laughing stock", overtly "cheesy" and "disgusting" - some footage below.
As cringy worthy as it already was, her husband added fuel to the fire by comparing Joe to the fictional killer Norman Bates, created by American author Robert Bloch - Psycho. To no one's surprise they were consequently "cancelled", and a petition was even started to have them fired from the show with a reported 70,000+ signatures within 24 hours.
With widespread condemnation from fans, fellow judges, sponsors, and Mr Simon Cowell himself, it was clear the incident required a swift response. The couple were fired the next day, and the producers didn't waste no time with replacements as Natalie Bassingthwaighte, and Shelton Woolright took positions.
To the excitement of some, Sinclair was later released by her label Interscope Records. It was later revealed by media that Natalia was dropped by the label Cherrytree Records "before" appearing on the show. We're not too sure if this bitterness towards the contestant stemmed from this, but you're inclined to hold the thought.
What Has Natalia Kills Been Up To?
We decided to take to her social media accounts for some information, although it didn't really help. Her once official website www.nataliakills.com doesn't even relate to her, and is home to a credit comparison site in Japanese - we found this bloody hilarious! Twitter couldn't even give us answers as her account was suspended for allegedly "violating the Twitter Rules", and the same goes for her Instagram page account which isn't available.
Her last video on her YouTube channel was "Trouble", and this was posted on the 19th February 2014. Although the video was posted before the X Factor incident, we weren't surprised to learn of it's 40,000 dislikes - it has 20,000 up votes. We can't possibly disparage her efforts by saying she wasn't a talented artist as we think she was, but the general attitude based on the comment section's "animosity".
One user said "Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a lord farquad dopplegänger in our midst.", and another "can't believe she copied dora i'm so disgusted what a laughing stock".
Considering Facebook's mission statement suggests it's "to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together", we had some hope to find something and weren't wrong. Although it didn't relate to her entertainment ambitions, Natalia's last post related to Hurricane Harvey.
The Category 4 hurricane caused catastrophic flooding and many deaths in Texas, and Louisiana in August 2017. The post possibly helped raise money for a fan, and his/her family reportedly affected. The campaign on GoFundMe raised a total of $1,295.
Who Is Teddy Sinclair?
Teddy Natalia Noemi Sinclair is the legal name of the singer, songwriter, and actress formerly known as "Natalia Kills". To prevent any confusion we'll continue to call her Natalia from herein, as she's known for changing her monikers like underwear; seriously.
She didn't give up on her music ambitions entirely after the drama, as Natalia and her husband started the band Cruel Youth. They had a few releases like "Mr. Watson", "Diamonds Days", and "Hatefuck" from the EP +30mg released under a label interestingly named "Disgrace Records". Their official Cruel Youth Instagram account has 209 posts, and 96.6k followers.
Did you know that Natalia Kills has recorded music under various aliases like Candy Rapper, Verbalicious, Verse, and Natalia Cappuccini? She was credited for Madonna's "Holy Water" under the name Natalia Keery-Fisher, and co-wrote Rihanna's 2016 Grammy nominated hit "Kiss It Better" under Teddy Sinclair.
The YouTube video for the track Mr. Watson has 37,000 likes, opposed to the minor 4,000 down votes. This song stood out the most for us, and it's a real shame that someone with such singing capabilities lost the plot the way she did.
Of course we scrolled to the comments without finishing the visuals, and we likely weren't alone. What was the obvious vibe we hear you asking? Well it's no brainer, a lot of hostility. One user said "sounds like Amy Winehouse, ladies and gents... a doppelganger" clearly indicating that her past hasn't been forgiven, regardless of the tracks potential.
Natalia may come across as one of world's most hated people, but she isn't. We did find a few supportive comments like "SHES SO GORGEOUS... UGH HER MIND", and "Just saw her open for kiiara last night and I bought her ep, I'm obsessed" on YouTube, and few on Instagram very friendly.
What Did We Learn?
"You need to come down from your high horse eventually", as Natalia and Willy thought they were safe from the "boot". A lesson could be learned from the British Grime, and Pop sensation Stormzy who famously said "You're getting way too big for your boots... You're never too big for the boot", to anyone in such judgemental positions.
To be a judge on a prime time show like the X Factor's a privilege in itself, but to express the views that they did to someone "aspiring" to be was clearly a career killer.
What do you think, was it down to the producers who "allegedly" staged the performance to provoke a response from Natalia as she claims, or did she just blow her top revealing her true colours? Have your say in the comments, and feel free to like, and share.
UPDATE: Tanizzle admires Teddy Sinclair's music and style, and we can honestly say that we failed to consider her predicament in the case of a gagging order preventing her from expressing her views. Please read our follow up article is Natalia Kills cancelled forever? and learn why we think Natalia Kills is dope. She really has grown on us and there's two sides to every story, #JusticeForNataliaKills - Tani xox.