CD:UK - Controversy

Controversy

• On 2 December 2000, Cat Deeley interviewed ex-Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. When asked what was the most ridiculous rumour he'd heard about himself, he replied getting a blowjob in a bar, and then spoke about how one of his snakes bit the fuck out of me. Declan Donnelly apologised for Slash's comments and a feature on Slash's Snakepit, which was due to be shown the following week was dropped.

• There was also a complete sound failure which prevented a performance by The Charlatans.

• In early 2002, singer Shaggy and Sacha Baron Cohen in his Ali G guise, filmed a feature for the show showing behind the scenes of the video for their single "Me Julie". During the skit the two singers often namechecked the show, only for Cohen to say "CD:UK?, that's not even a word, more like Cuduk", intentionally mistaking the initialism for a pronounceable word. It was only the night before, that the pair appeared on the BBC's rival show Top of the Pops, making an announcement after the end credits that they would be on next weeks show, performing the single on CD:UK with Cohen intentionally pretending that he thinks he is on CD:UK when he's actually on the BBC's competitor, only for Shaggy to tell him that he's got the name of the show wrong. This could have been seen by many as a dig at CD:UK, especially with the mocking of its title on the show itself later on.

• Christina Aguilera performed her single Dirrty, introducing her raunchy image amid to complaints from parents as the show was aimed at youngsters. She appeared to be wearing hotpants and knickers saying 'Dirrty' on them with a bikini top.

• Pink was once asked to change her lyrics to the song "Just Like A Pill" to avoid swearing, (the song features several uses of the word 'bitch'). As a compromise, she did change the lyrics but she removed her top on stage to reveal a t-shirt underneath with 'f**k' written on it (asterisks covered the 'u' and 'c'). She was threatened with being banned from the show for her behaviour.

• One of the sponsorships stings from Tizer, which featured the "Tizer head" talking to Cat Deeley, was acknowledged by Deeley in the actual show, which aimed controversy at the Ofcom rule of keeping sponsorships of "live" TV shows separate from the live show itself.