R&B star Usher has slammed TV talent shows such as American Idol, despite acting as a mentor on the hit Fox show last month….hypocrite much?

The ‘Papers’ singer was first discovered via the TV show Star Search and it was due to this appearance, that he landed his first record deal as a teenager. He also saw fit to use Idol as a vehicle to promote his latest album ‘Raymond vs Raymond’ in April (video here) but the day before his appearance gave an interview to The Guardian slamming music based shows. He said:

“The true art form of music is being lost, because it seems so easy that everyone can do it, and that it can happen overnight. Television is a lie. It can’t happen overnight. The artist who thinks that it can just comes and goes. The reason why great singers cannot exist in this time is maybe because they’re not properly managed, and maybe they don’t understand the full gamut of what being an entertainer is.

“We’re dealing with an industry that is slowly but surely dying, every day,” he continues. “So [a manager] finds someone with a great look, and it’s, ‘Wow, let’s make him sound great, so we can sell some records.’ Then there’s the record companies that’s mass-producing these versions of these people; versions of this broken art. While it works, because it sells records, it damages the business.”

While Usher makes some valid points in his interview, it does seem a little hypocritical that he suse the shows he hates, in a bid to further his own career. If he’s going to be idealistic then he should at least try to live by his ideals and not sell out quite so spectacularly!