Natalia Kills and Willy Moon Apologize for 'X Factor' Bullying

Former New Zealand X Factor judges Natalia Kills and Willy Moon took to Twitter to make their apologies for their harsh comments toward contestant Joe Irvine's performance last week.The pair homed in on Irvine's fashion sense and its relative similarity to that of Moon.

The married duo was immediately fired from X Factor. "You're a laughingstock," Kills told Irvine during the live performance. "It's cheesy, it's disgusting. I personally found it absolutely artistically atrocious. I am embarrassed to be sitting here in your presence having to even dignify you with an answer of my opinion."

Willy Moon then started in on his attack, "It's like Norman Bates dressing up in his mother's clothing. It's just a little bit creepy," Moon said. "I feel like you're going to stitch someone's skin to your face and then kill everyone in the audience."

There was silence from the pair for several days. But public pressure was apparently too much and the duo both tweeted photos of their statements.

Instead of offering a genuine apology, the pair shifts the blame to X Factor. Kills and Moon imply that the show told them to be mean. This makes sense to some extent: American Idol was largely a sensation because the public loved to hate former judge Simon Cowell. People tuned in every week to see what Cowell would say about their favorite contestant's performance. But Cowell never went that personal in his career. He didn't compare a contestant to the killer from Psycho like Moon did.

In an interview with MTV Australia, Kills said that people shouldn't blame the network. "I feel like everyone needs to put the idea of it being a manufactured conspiracy theory behind them, there's really nothing to it," Kills told MTV Australia. "I love my husband with all of my heart, we'll stick together no matter what."

What do you think of Kills and Moon's apologies?