One Susan Boyle wannabe is taking a stand for all those who have willingly subjected themselves to a Simon Cowell critique and been shocked—shocked!—to learn that the pop-music tastemaker doesn't think they can sing.
Still smarting after receiving two decisive "no's" and a "never" from Cowell when she butchered "You Raise Me Up" on Britain's Got Talent last year, Emma Czikai is now suing Cowell and the show for $3.8 million.
Actually, Cowell went relatively easy on her, compared to the cat-screaming, nails-on-a-blackboard comparisons he usually dishes out on American Idol.
"With all due respect, Emma, it is a beautiful song when you're not singing it," Cowell patiently informed her. "And I think I speak on behalf of everyone, you have got a horrible singing voice."
Oh yeah?
"This program makes a select number of rich people very, very rich on the backs of the ordinary man and woman in the street through exploitation, humiliation, degradation and a re-emergence of modern-day barbarism with all its inherent cruelty," Czikai alleges in paperwork filed Thursday in London.
Hmm, last time we checked, none of those auditioners were forced on the stage at gunpoint.
But that's not the point, according to Czikai.
She states in her complaint that she wrote to Cowell after her resoundingly unsuccessful audition—during which she blamed the backing music, the microphone, everything but her bum pipes—and explained that she suffered from a condition that causes head and shoulder pain that sometimes affects her singing.
And yet the cold folks at Britain's Got Talent opted to include her audition in the broadcast anyway. (As a release form she probably had to sign would have allowed them to do.)
Czikai says that any money she receives she'll give to charity.
Cowell's probably just relieved that she didn't say it'll go toward singing lessons.
________
Check out the folks who braved the wrath of Cowell and survived in our American Idol: Where Are They Now? gallery.