It's not unknown that Simon Cowell can be a mean ol' grinch from his judging chair on talent-seeking TV shows. Emma Amelia Pearl Czikai, one of the 2009's Britain's Got Talent contestants, claims she was humiliated and degraded by Cowell and is suing him and the show for the equivelent of $3.8 million.

Czikai represented herself at a pre-trial review at the tribunal court in central London on Wednesday. She is also claiming the show discriminated against her disability, in that the backing music and microphone levels were not lowered for her. She claims she suffers from cervical spine neuritis, saying it caused her singing to suffer during her Talent performance.

She stated, "This program makes a select number of rich people very, very rich on the backs of the ordinary man and woman in the street through exploitation, humiliation, degradation and a re-emergence of modern-day barbarism with all its inherent cruelty."

Watch Czikai's original performance, where she attempts to blame the mic and backing music. Are the judges any more degrading than they usually are to auditioning talent?

[via Billboard]

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