Simon Cowell launches Twitter attack on donkey

Patty the painting donkey blasted as ‘terrible’ by Britain’s Got Talent head judge

Emma Daly

Published: Monday, 20 May 2013 at 2:28 pm

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We all know Simon Cowell can dish out the criticism for humans – but in this year’s Britain’s Got Talent series Simon’s turned on the animals.

In 2012, a dog won BGT. And not just any dog, a dancing dog. Pudsey, who could twirl, jump, hop and generally melt hearts, frolicked across the stage to various tracks, including the theme tune from The Flintstones cartoon. Oh how we laughed. Oh how we all thought for just one teensy minute Simon had a heart. This year he even hugged a puppy all the way through a performance.

But this good will has been short lived. The rose-tinted glasses are off – Simon has turned on a donkey. Not just any donkey either. This donkey (Patty to her friends) can paint. Ok, granted, the ‘painting donkey’ sort of just happened to have a paintbrush in her mouth in the vicinity of a canvas. She kind of spat it out every few seconds as if shocked to find that, yet again, it wasn’t a carrot. She kind of just smeared various colours wherever – but what is painting if not expressive? No-one told Picasso that’s not where an ear is supposed to be did they?

Yet, Simon couldn’t keep his criticism to himself. After mocking the painting donkey on Saturday’s show, saying he was "disappointed" as he thought the donkey was going to do "a mountain range", he took to Twitter to vent some more. Telling his near 7 million followers, “If you are an animal reading this please rehearse for next year’s Britain’s Got Talent now. A painting donkey was the best we got this year.” Adding a cutting, “Who was terrible by the way”. Ouch. So we won’t hold our breath for a winning animal this year.

Would a ‘reading donkey’ even get Simon’s vote? He’d probably think it was boring and hit the buzzer before the donkey could prove he’d read anything. No, we’re not sure how a donkey would prove it could read either. Blame Simon, he started us talking about the whole performing animal thing.