Spy: X Factor judge tried to burn down ex's house

New X Factor judges, Natalia Kills and Willy Moon. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

The hunt for the next talented Kiwi with the x factor has begun, but host Dominic Bowden missed the first day of filming at the Skycity Theatre on Wednesday. He was busy in Hollywood, backstage at the final of Dancing with the Stars.

The judging panel - Stan Walker, former UK popstar Melanie Blatt, fellow Brit singer Natalia Kills and her husband, NY based Kiwi musician Willy Moon - got straight into sizing up the talent that X Factor bosses have trawled the country for.

Word from the set is that Kills and Moon gel better with Walker and Blatt than their predecessors, Ruby Frost and Daniel Bedingfield.

The newbies are already lively additions to the Auckland social scene, and there has been a lot of talk about Kills' love life - particularly given she released a hit song in the UK called Kill My Boyfriend.

Kills put Spy straight on the various rumours - saying it wasn't true that she had set an ex-boyfriend's car on fire ... but that she did try and burn down his flat!

"I tried (and wasn't successful) to burn the house down after a big fight, with both him and me in it. I was a wild-child teenager, a poster child of 'do not try this at home!' Ha-ha.

"I'm not really the killing type. I'm more an, 'I'm going to make your life a living hell' kinda gal. Ha-ha, Joking ... not joking."

The new season of X Factor screens next year, and when filming finishes on Wednesday, Blatt, Kills and Moon return to the UK for Christmas. They will be back in Auckland in January to begin filming the judges' retreat part of the show.