Jules And Matisse: Talent Show Stunt Switch Misleading, Say Ofcom

by HUFFOST | Entertainment

Sure you all remember the controversy surrounding Jules and Matisse during the ‘Britain's Got Talent' show final.

Jules And Matisse won the show after the dog performed tight rope walk that stunned judges. But after the show, it emerged that Jules had switched the dog because she has two of similar specie called Matisse and Chase.

Matisse actually couldn't walk the tight rope because she was afraid of heights, so Jules substituted her, using Chase for the final.

Well, the public raised a lot of protest that was directed at Ofcom, feeling shortchanged.

Well, today Ofcome made their decision public, and said it was misleading switching the dogs, and that the public voted for the wrong dog. But ITV had not intended to deceive the public because they were not aware that three dogs were indeed involved in the stunt.

A total of 1,175 viewers complained when it was revealed that a stunt dog, Chase, had walked the tightrope, and not Jules’ pooch Matisse, according to Huggington Post.

ITV have now offered to refund all those who voted using pay phone.  ITV will refund them .50p, but all those who voted using the ITV App - some 90% of the voters - will not be getting the refund.

But happened to the £250K money that followed the win? No word about that - yet.

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Ofcom have now given their verdict, following an investigation, stating that while ITV did not deliberately intend to mislead viewers, “the presentation of the act Jules O’Dwyer & Matisse not only had the potential to mislead, but was likely to have done so”.

“We have no reason to believe that there was any intention to deceive viewers that the tightrope walk actually involved a second dog,” they add. “In particular, we noted that Chase, the dog which performed this part of the act, had been introduced to viewers in a previous episode in the series.

“We also noted that, in her appearance on the Lorraine programme the following day, Jules O’Dwyer was shown with both Matisse and Chase, and spoke openly about the role that the latter had played in the previous night’s performance.”

Jules and Matisse faced a huge backlash when they won the show back in May, andwere even on the receiving end of death threats from vile Twitter trolls.

Read more at www.Huffingtonpost.com.