'America's Got Talent' 2015: Winner Paul Zerdin Accused Of Stealing Original Acts, 'He Fooled The Judges?' [VIDEO]
Two ventriloquists are not happy about this year's winner of America's Got Talent.
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On Monday, Deadline spoke with two dummy voice performers, Ronn Lucas and David Strassman, who accused the reality competition winner Paul Zerdin of using unoriginal acts.
"I think he stole my act," Lucas said. "What bothers me is that he won by stealing other peoples' acts, including my own, and that he takes credit for the originality. That's what bothers me the most."
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Zerdin won the finals of the competition where he gained a good haul of fame as well as $1 million. But is there a chance that he manipulated the audience and judges into believing his work came from his own creativity?
"What bothers me is that he fooled the judges and the audience into thinking that he originated these routines," Strassman said. "I think he needs to give credit where credit is due. I don't think it's fair for anybody to win a talent show and a lot of money on unoriginal material."
As it turns out, Zerdin did a skit on the show during the quarterfinals that was awfully similar to something Strassman did in 1989. Basically both of the ventriloquists got into arguments with their dummies and walked off stage leaving the dummies to perform in front of the audience. In Strassman's skit, his dummy looked around and said, "Is he gone?," which is exactly what Zerdin's dummy said.
Check it out in both videos below.
