Speaking to a family-friend of Aidan on facebook and found out some interesting info....


Seems like he was set up to me. Horrible attitude from the producers. No wonder he cried - the producers messed him about and then Simon criticised him!

The friend also says Aidan is a lovely boy, great sense of humour and "annoyingly brilliant" at everything he tries.

I put this on the other thread and it's probably relevant here (though this is obviously more deserving of a new thread than the 3645th re-revelation of Julian and Sony)


You can tell that looking at him next to A+D!

The singers were allowed to...


He was probably worn out! Understandable.


Presuming she means applauded... I would have given them a mouthful for it! Even at 12. Infact especially at 12. This sounds worse than we thought.


Hardly a way to treat anyone let alone a twelve year old child.


Well of course, even though he did it the night before he still needs to run through!

Sounds like a setup.

Almost as though they wanted to set him up to look like an idiot and do badly then.

This is really interesting. She should blog it, might improve BGT as a contest if people find out what really goes on.

(hope nobody minds me posting all this, thought Aidan fans who don't post in the At might want to know)

Or better still, Aidan fans post in the thread! (Teenage chav girlz whu tlk lyk dis nt welcum init q:-Q)

LOL.

If this is true, what a marked contrast to the kid-glove treatment meted out to that other child of similar age, Hollie.

We have no reason to doubt the source, it's one of Aidan's family's friends... but you can understand why this has been kept under wraps.

In fact, I wonder if Aidan is the backlash of treating Hollie the way she was.

That's it, we made a girl cry so we'll just prove we have to treat them like adults and take it out on a confident child. It's daft.

BGT need to stop picking the acts for the contestants unless they have a good reason to do it. If Aidan wants to repeat his audition, which let's face it is what practically all the singers did, then let him. His problem if people then think he only knows two routines. But at least HE is doing what HE wants and they can criticise his choice.

In this case Simon made a child who was tired from the night before learn a new routine in 3 goes, all of which he messed up by falling over, without any other than a token chance of a repeat act and then had the temerity to criticise him for it.

Puts the "I'm disappointed with Simon" line in another light, because it could mean a lot more than the criticism (which at face value was fair) - I think at that stage Aidan knew he'd been set up and was too tired and upset to actually say anything, so cried.

I have felt it was always some what of a fix, they really NEEDED Susan to be in the final *due to all the press*, and as Aiden was 2nd to win *if i recall correctly*, they had to push him back, really discusting on the producers part..

That's terrible.
Didn't see any complaints or fuss from Aidan though - he handled it like a pro (that is a pro, Amanda - Hollie is not.)

Well yeah. But I would say that he would have a lot to lose from actually making a fuss.

We know that he'd still be in the final and a lot of people would hinge on the judges comments and also that Aidan had a chance of winning that - an outside one, but he was good enough to given control over the routine etc, if he did it well. So if he criticises or speaks about it then he would be annoying the show precisely when he needs the votes - Andrew Muir did that last year and came last. Aidan's a smart lad and he'll know he needs to keep the judges on side to get the votes (whilst probably screaming setup in his mind).

And I bet a lot of the tour would be set up by Cowell and he's probably paid by appearance and if he speaks out too much then he would probably get less for that.

And as well, we know Cowell looks for who to sign up after this, there probably isn't much Cowell can do with a break dancer, like with George last year, but at the same time Aidan is way more than just a dancer - he taught himself! He's a talented musician, plays guitar and who knows what else, and does martial arts - if he does other things as well we don't know about then he's even more attractive to Cowell (especially if he can sing well) and of course he has the ability to learn things by himself, so he could get noticed by his self-taught dancing ability then obviously they'd know about his other talents and all of a sudden Simon has something different and attractive to sign up. But not if he speaks out against how he's treated...

Clever way of thinking about it ForestChav, and I didn't actually realise how many talents Aidan had.

If that's true, it's awful. Poor kid must have felt really crap that he was screwed over like that.

I did wonder whether they ever really wanted Aidan to win. They had a young male dancer win last year and I doubt they wanted the same result two years in a row. Especially when Aidan got unfavourable comments off Simon and was early in the running order. Sure, his routine wasn't great but I didn't see Simon criticising some of the other kid contestants for average routines, so it seemed inconsistent.

Yep, apparently he's "annoyingly good at everything" - sounds like my kind of child tbh.

I wonder if he's realised. He's a smart lad so it wouldn't surprise me. Said friend is also aware of DS/Aidan appreciation thread so who knows.

Yeah, they said that last year with a singer. But they have to go with the public vote. So the only way they can get what they want to win, or narrow it down, is to influence the public vote so that some people get knocked down with a poor act and others get what they like, criticism, placings in the orders, different editing in the IVs, etc...

Running order can work well if an act near the start does really well too, it's a well-established connection, but in this case the top 3 were the last 3 acts.

As for the comments, well, on the face of it they were fair enough. But if Simon had set up Aidan with a poor act when he was expecting to do what his friend had done (and repeat their audition piece) presuming Simon would be OK with this, and he wanted him to actually do something totally new, and Aidan knew that he wouldn't be able to (he had to be pretty tired) and was told he couldn't, and then criticised him for it, that is a very poor way to treat an adult let alone a boy of just twelve years. I guess Aidan's a pretty confident, strong child, but it puts Aidan's "I'm disappointed with Simon" comment when he cried - and probably the tears - in more context. Sure, the kid was probably tired and upset anyway but being deliberately set up to be shot down is shoddy and he is clever enough to realise it.

Well, to be honest, he couldn't really criticise Shaheen because he sang very well (as you would expect from a singer of his standard) even though Cowell might have picked the song and he couldn't really pick on Hollie either after the previous night's actions... so if he was going to criticise a kid, it would be the one he'd set up for it. It all makes sense, and it is a pretty deplorable way to treat a child who doesn't deserve any of it - Aidan is likeable, intelligent, funny, it's horrid to treat him like this, and to make him cry... The more I think about this the more upsetting it is.

Does Simon get involved with these producers decisions, or is the final a case of the producers sort out the show and he gets to just sit back and watch and judge?

I would have agreed with Aiden about doing his first audition. He really stood out and showed what he could do which impressed me, yet the second two times he was on those screens ruined it for me as my eyes were too distracted by them, and his dancing didn't seem the focus and sadly, it made me think of George which put me right off.

Simon is the producer. He isn't credited, but he is in charge of syco who run BGT and owns the right to the Got Talent name, as well as being in charge of the actual credited producers, it is his show. I would imagine he has an influence in who does what, as well.

I don't think we can underestimate Aidan on the act choice - he is a clever lad who knows what he wants, by all accounts, which is really encouraging for a boy who just turned 12. But I actually thought the effects were rather nice. He's small, he's probably just under 5 ft tall (tiny for a boy his age) and he's quite skinny as well so he hardly fills the stage. The image of him being projected behind him makes it look like he fills more space so you can see him, which makes it more noticeable. George isn't as good, Aidan has great balance and movement (unsurprising, he does martial arts) and is totally natural at it. I dunno, him being on the screen seemed to focus it more for what he was doing - as opposed to seeing a dot on a large stage you could see what he was doing more and it filled the space. But I guess they can overkill on the effects. He should have repeated, like he wanted to, but we can "what if" all we like.

Personally I think the poor boy was completely worn out after the late night the day before and that probably influenced his decision to repeat, because it would just need one run through to fit it to the stage, which would give him more time to rest, but I'm not sure that would have made much difference... but because he is determined and has the ability to just get through he did that anyway.

Even so, the information there is the missing piece, to be honest, in the same situation I would definitely have cried at 12 and probably would do now, but I'd probably be able to keep it in until I got offstage, and I don't really cry much.

As more of this comes to light, its sadly obvious that they didnt want Aidan to win after George won last year.

I honestly believe that if a different act had won last year - Escala for example, Aidan had done his semi final performance in the final AND he had been in the last few slots, he would have won, and i would have whacked several votes in for him.

The irony is out of the two Aidan is by far the better. Even taking them at face value and not accounting for Aidan teaching himself and George having dance lessons at stage school...

If you take away the rain effect, the backstory and the manipulation......George wasn't THAT good a dancer anyway.

Yes, Aidan has better balance (probably because he's smaller) and looks like he's actually dancing as opposed to flinging himself around in water. I saw George in the semis this year and I was like "and people voted for this? it isn't that good". Take away all the stories (George coming back, Aidan teaching himself, George going to stage school, busking on the streets to pay for him to get the the audition, spine condition etc) and look at them both together and Aidan is better. And younger. The frightening thought is that if he really wants to do this, he will get far better, especially if he gets dancing lessons.

Interesting to read that Aiden wasn't allowed to do what he wanted in the final. I didn't like George at all when I saw him perform and he didn't seem to have much of a personality either. Aiden was much better to watch but I didn't like the multiple screens behind him. One large screen would have done! Seems like there was too much manipulation going on behind the scenes in handicaping the good acts so that Simon's favourites would have the advantage.

I actually liked those, he's a small child on a good day and it helped him fill the space more.

George seemed to be really nice in finals week (several people noticed the change from being a shy little kid to a confident kid over the week in Andrew) and for a bit afterwards then got a bit arrogant with the fame... or just part of growing up. It's a comedown anyway, some are more used to it than others, and I'm sure those near to Aidan like him how he is (quite right) and will make sure that BGT doesn't go to his head. He is still a young boy with a lot to learn.

But yeah, it does look as though they are deliberately putting some acts at a disadvantage to make it easier for others which I find wrong.

I knew the minute that Flawless, Shaheen and Aidan were the first three acts to perform on Saturday that something was wrong. I mean, three favourites at the start with Susan Boyle on late, and Julian Smith performing last to - no doubt - distract voters from voting an early act?

Probably, though going first can be an advantage too, so this works both ways, it just depends. In this case the later acts finished lower. I think Shaheen generally had poor song choices for his voice - they were all a bit low for him, especially in the semi when he sounded ill anyway (and they probably wouldn't let him change it, but they didn't criticise him or anything) and lower songs are always harder to pull off with a sore throat... and Flawless could easily have won the dance group vote if Diversity weren't as good - let's not forget that Diversity were pretty average at audition. The last 3 came in the top 3, but that could work either way.

I'm sure the producers had their favourite and tried to make us vote for them

I'm not sure if Diversity was who they wanted to win though.

I'm pretty sure it was geared towards Susan, and they got a backlash at the wrong time.