BGT Winner Responds After Receiving Backlash For Already Having An Amazon Special

This year’s Britain’s Got Talent winner has addressed criticism that he had an unfair advantage on the show. 

Comedian Axel Blake, 33, was crowned winner of BGT during Sunday’s (5 June) finale, and wasted no time responding to disgruntled fans on today’s episode of Lorraine. 

Blake peeved off fans back in April when he impressed Simon Cowell so much that the judge hit the Golden Buzzer, prompting many viewers to point out that Blake previously had his own stand-up show on Amazon.

In 2018, Blake performed a comedy special called I’m Not Gonna Lie at the O2 Arena, which was filmed and released on Amazon Video.

However, Blake told Lorraine that he financed the entire show himself, explaining: “I put that show on myself and I just put my money where my mouth is and I achieved that.

“That’s the thing, it looks like ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Amazon Prime’. But if they saw the backend, it didn’t look like that financially. All the stress, I had to borrow money from people.”

Blake added: “After that, Amazon picked it up. It wasn’t for Amazon Prime. I didn’t know they were going to pick that up, and that was like a year later.”

Last month, BGT’s head honcho Cowell also addressed complaints that this year’s show was fixed.

Offering some advice to contestant Loren Allred – who faced similar criticism to Blake after it was revealed that Allfred’s vocals starred on The Greatest Showman – Cowell said: “I know you got a bit of stick in the media – ‘It’s a fix because you’ve been on another show’.

“That’s the whole point of shows like this, that you give someone another chance.”

Blake also addressed his career as a comedian during an appearance on Good Morning Britain in May.

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— BGT (@BGT) April 17, 2022

Speaking to hosts Kate Garraway and Adil Ray, he confirmed: “I’ve been doing it for a good few years, so I’ve been doing a lot of small gigs around the UK and further places I don’t even know how to get to now.”

Blake added: “I’ve done some of the big gigs – I’ve done O2 Indigo – that was a big one.”

Garraway then said: “Lots of things to help build up, but nothing that can take you to that big platform, which is I guess why you decided to do Britain’s Got Talent,” to which Blake replied: “There we have it, Kate.”