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A professional Bee Gees impersonator is crying fowl after his singing performance on Stars in Their Eyes was compared to "a rooster on nitrous oxide" by a reviewer.
Nelson singer Pete Madsen strutted his stuff as Barry Gibb on an episode of the TV One reality series, and received a scathing review from Manawatu Standard writer Peter Lampp.
"Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees took the cake last night for unadulterated screeching," Lampp penned in May.
"I mistook Madsen... for a rooster on nitrous oxide. Maybe his grundies were too gonad-restrictive, because his Night Fever was excruciating."
Madsen emailed the newspaper last week saying he was concerned the comments, which now appear on the internet, were a "direct threat and could be permanently damaging to my income".
The 39-year-old asked the Standard to request their removal from the Google search engine, but the newspaper refused.
Manawatu Standard deputy editor Michael Cummings said they had been inundated with letters and text messages supporting Lampp's comments and the paper would "not back down".
"[Madsen] had gone on the show to perform, and when you do that you open yourself up to reviews - some will be positive, and some will be negative."
The Bee Gees singer, who owns promotions company Madsen Entertainment, told the Herald on Sunday he found the review "really funny" and did not plan to sue anyone, as one report suggested.
"I'm the first one to have a laugh, and the guy who wrote this is very talented and clever, but I'm just asking where the line gets drawn."
His biggest concern was potential clients searching the internet and discovering the review.
"Who's going to hire a guy who might sound like a rooster to sing at their wedding or 21st party?"
Madsen said he had consulted the Citizens Advice Bureau about his legal rights but couldn't do anything more.
But he questioned whether there should be a law on how long articles were archived on the internet.
"People are all just trying to make a living, including journalists," Madsen said. "I'm even still laughing about it now, but it's not going to be very funny when I'm going down to the dole office."
