It has been a long held belief by viewers of certain reality shows that they are actually staged or scripted and the X Factor is called out for this every year.
This time though, show bosses have thrown those watching a bone to get their teeth into, with a bizarre audition.
The backlash to Kirsty Murphy storming in on girl group’s Remenition continues to rumble on, especially now that there are claims that she was wearing a mic.
With a group of four wannabes waiting to belt out a show-stopping audition, there was chaos when Kirsty slipped past security and stormed the set.
Instead of telling her where to go though, it was the girl group that were sent packing, so that Simon Cowell and his fellow judges could hear what Kirsty had to offer.
Obviously, there were many that thought that this was outrageous, after the hours of waiting that most do to make it into the room.
Kirsty begged to be heard, saying: “I really wanna sing to you guys and they’re saying they’ve got no time for me to sing.
“You want a fighter and I’m here to fight.”
This seemed enough to convince the judges to let Kirsty have her five minutes of fame.
After belting out Alicia Key’s If I Ain’t Got You, Simon then decided that she had done enough to go through to bootcamp.
Sharon Osbourne had pointed out the “really bad pitching problems” but Simon rewarded Kirsty’s tenacity.
He told her: “For sheer determination, I’m going to give you your third yes.”
Of course, viewers called FIX straight away and there seems no abating in this view.
Obviously, the X Factor is primarily a television show that looks to provide entertainment.
There’s almost certainly an element of it being ‘fixed’, so that the variety of acts reach the judges.
It wouldn’t make very interesting TV if there were scores of sound-a-likes but there is only so much leeway viewers will allow these shows.
It now seems that the X Factor has used up all its credit.