London:
A Britain's Got Talent contestant is suing judge Simon Cowell for $5 million, claiming she was "humiliated and degraded" by the music mogul during auditions.
It is reported that Emma Amelia Pearl Czikai, 54, claims she was left humiliated after Cowell, also a judge on the super-hit US show American Idol, mocked her performance.
The aspiring singer was told that she did not have the talent by judges Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan and Cowell saying that she had a "horrible singing voice."
The former nurse claimed in the lawsuit that she was ridiculed in front of 20 million viewers and the trio took away her "self respect and dignity" in order to boost the programme's ratings and profit.
She says that her performance (screened in May last year) suffered due to the constant pain she was in and, hence, could not sing in noisy raucous environments.
On the show, a clip of which was subsequently posted on YouTube, a smirking Cowell asked Czikai if she thought she had the talent to win. Dressed in an intricately embroidered red ball gown, she replied, "Oh Simon, I'm wonderful. You will go home and think I'm so glad that I met that woman."
But after only a few notes of the power ballad You Raise Me Up, Morgan was the first judge to buzz her off, quickly followed by the other two.
When Czikai tried to protest that the backing track was too loud and she wasn't used to the microphone, Cowell snapped, "It's not loud enough. Emma, Emma, reality check here. It's not the music, it's not the microphone, it's you." Czikai also lifted the lid on the way contestants were treated on the show and said it was like "modern day slavery".
She said contestants were routinely humiliated, bullied into saying things they didn't mean and goaded to become angry and frustrated to make good television.
It is reported that Emma Amelia Pearl Czikai, 54, claims she was left humiliated after Cowell, also a judge on the super-hit US show American Idol, mocked her performance.
The aspiring singer was told that she did not have the talent by judges Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan and Cowell saying that she had a "horrible singing voice."
The former nurse claimed in the lawsuit that she was ridiculed in front of 20 million viewers and the trio took away her "self respect and dignity" in order to boost the programme's ratings and profit.
She says that her performance (screened in May last year) suffered due to the constant pain she was in and, hence, could not sing in noisy raucous environments.
On the show, a clip of which was subsequently posted on YouTube, a smirking Cowell asked Czikai if she thought she had the talent to win. Dressed in an intricately embroidered red ball gown, she replied, "Oh Simon, I'm wonderful. You will go home and think I'm so glad that I met that woman."
But after only a few notes of the power ballad You Raise Me Up, Morgan was the first judge to buzz her off, quickly followed by the other two.
When Czikai tried to protest that the backing track was too loud and she wasn't used to the microphone, Cowell snapped, "It's not loud enough. Emma, Emma, reality check here. It's not the music, it's not the microphone, it's you." Czikai also lifted the lid on the way contestants were treated on the show and said it was like "modern day slavery".
She said contestants were routinely humiliated, bullied into saying things they didn't mean and goaded to become angry and frustrated to make good television.
