Painting donkey fails to impress on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent
Patty the painting donkey has become the latest victim of Simon Cowell’s red buzzer. And the Britain’s Got Talent judge has taken to Twitter to vent his distaste of the equine act.
“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,” he tweeted, before adding, damningly: “Who was terrible, by the way.”
Simon is famously hard to please on the ITV show. Patty’s “abstract” style didn’t cut it, with the judge telling viewers he’d hoped she’d do “a mountain range”.
“My advice is you actually pay for the donkey to have painting or drawing lessons,” he said.
But Vicky Greenslade, who taught Patty to paint at the HorseWorld rescue centre
in Bristol, said Simon’s comments wouldn’t stop Patty’s artistic career.
“We’ve already had another commission for one of her paintings since the programme aired and people have been coming to the centre especially to see her,” she said.
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This news story was first published in Horse & Hound magazine (30 May 2013)
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A graduate from Durham University, Madeleine joined H&H in 2011 and became Features Editor — producing content across the magazine and website, including the popular inside back cover article ‘The horse that made me’ and the weekly ‘The best of my fun…’ interview. She has written on topics as diverse as hay making and headcams, to hot totty in the horse world and circus horses. Madeleine now works as a freelance feature writer for Country Life, The Telegraph, Horse & Hound, cntraveller.com, The Spectator and The Field, as well as writing obituaries for The Times.