It’s been more than a year since Natalia Kills and Willy Moon departed New Zealand under a cloud of controversy following their shocking outburst on The X Factor NZ.
Now, the couple have returned to the music scene together as a new band named Cruel Youth, with the music video for their first single ‘Mr Watson’ released on YouTube overnight.
In a statement to The Fader, the singer-songwriter described the track as “a narcotic lullaby” written with her husband, “after he suspected that Oxy was my one true love instead of him”.
Natalia and Willy have now joined forces as the band Cruel Youth. Photo: Getty
She also revealed that the video was filmed at New York’s Coney Island, where the couple “used to get high on the rides”.
On Twitter back in February, she wrote that the Cruel Youth sound – “The Ronettes on Oxy” – was the “musical love child” of herself and Willy, “created during a three-month lock in at my studio”.
The couple were widely slammed in New Zealand after their blistering critique of X Factor contestant Joe Irvine went viral.
During the highly publicised incident, Natalia accused Joe of copying her husband’s look, while New Zealand-born Willy went one step further and wondered aloud whether Joe might “stitch someone’s skin to your face and kill everyone in the audience”.
Watch the controversial moment in the video player below – story continues after the video
Natalia – who announced she had changed her name to Teddy Sinclair shortly after the shocking incident – made reference to the X Factor debacle in a Twitter post back in February, as part of a statement about Cruel Youth.
“For a brief moment in 2015 I felt like it was the death of me,” she wrote, adding that she became more passionate about music than ever after the uproar.
She called the moment “a publicity stunt resulting in a viral media storm”, adding that she was unable to defend herself against the “global witch-hunt” that followed, “due to a wide-reaching legal gagging order”.
After returning to New York with Willy by her side, Natalia says she immediately threw herself into song writing, creating ‘Holy Water’ for Madonna’s Rebel Heart album and ‘Kiss It Better’ for Rihanna’s ANTI.
The couple were fired from The X Factor and left the country shortly after the incident. Photo: Getty
