Entertainment

'X Factor UK' Singer Wants Cover Art Of Tilikum

by Emma Goddard

Sometimes people can be really sick and twisted. Today, it’s former X Factor UK singer James Arthur. And tomorrow and the next day and forever it will probably be Arthur, because I doubt people will let him forget the stupid shit he just pulled. The singer, who has already been known for his controversial tweets, and recently even criticized his own management for what they were tweeting from his account, took to the website to ask fans to design cover art for his new hip hop mixtape. And he wants it to feature Tilikum. Get. The. Fuck. Out.

As many may know, Tilikum is the Orca featured in the CNN documentary Blackfish, which told the story of the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010, as well as highlighted the unnecessary need to hold these animals in captivity. Arthur, who apparently thinks it’s hilarious to mock someone’s death made his way to Twitter this morning to promote his upcoming work, All The World's A Stage.

First, he began with, “Announcements to come! Seeing as though I’m doing this for the fans and I’m not charging for it I would like you to design the front cover.” Good, so you only care about fans designing your artwork when your mixtape is free. Got it. Glad you love your fans.

Second idiot statement within the past four hours? “I would like the front cover to be a drawing of the killer whale/Orca from sea world who features in the documentary ‘Blackfish’ TILIKUM.” UGH I’m fuming! After that, it only got worse when Arthur compared himself to Tilikum, claiming he was being exploited, tweeting, “Ideally I’d like him to be attacking a crowd of people, lashing out after being exploited. Include my name and the title of the mixtape.” I wish I could stick my foot through my computer screen and kick this guy in the face right now. In case you were wondering, sir, this is probably the reason why you had to have a Twitter team in the first place. Since you’re clearly a bit thick, I’ll explain the reason to you anyway: you are an asshole.

What might be the worst part of all this? Some of his fans are actually assholes too! Sometimes I really love everyone, but then there are days like today when I truly lose all faith in humanity.

I’m going to be sick. I fully believe in freeing animals from captivity, but we should probably stick Arthur in a cage.