Switzerland has won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, with entrant Nemo taking the crown for their performance of ‘The Code’.
Nemo’s victory marks Switzerland’s first Eurovision win since 1988, when Celine Dion competed with ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’. They are also the first ever non-binary winner of Eurovision.
Quickly becoming a frontrunner, ‘The Code’ incorporated elements of pop, rap, drum ‘n’ bass and even opera to tell the story of how Nemo discovered that they were non-binary. Its staging was simple yet effective, with the singer performing on a spinning plate while still reaching some impressive high notes.
In their victory speech, Nemo declared: “I hope this contest can live up to its promise and continue to stand for peace and dignity for every person in this world.”
They then appeared to have broken the contest’s famed crystal microphone trophy, which they acknowledged later at the press conference.
“I broke the code and I broke the trophy. Maybe the trophy can be fixed, maybe Eurovision needs a bit of fixing too every now and then.”
“maybe eurovision needs a little bit of fixing” – nemo at the winners press conference #eurovision #eurovision2024 pic.twitter.com/sZIfyuEMwL
— steven🃏〄 (@xsteeewx) May 11, 2024
Croatia, who had also been particularly popular in the run-up to the contest, finished as runners-up with Baby Lasagna’s ‘Rim Tim Tagi Dim’. Ukraine’s Alyona Alyona & Jerry Heil were just behind in third with ‘Teresa & Maria’, while France and Israel round out the top 5 with Slimane’s ‘Mon Amour’ and Eden Golan’s ‘Hurricane’ respectively.
Bambie Thug finished sixth with ‘Doomsday Blue’, marking Ireland’s best performance in Eurovision for 25 years. The UK’s entry Olly Alexander fared less well, coming 18th after receiving the dreaded ‘nul points’ from the public vote and being saved by the jury vote.
This year’s edition of Eurovision has been the subject of various controversies, particularly relating to Israel being allowed to compete despite the ongoing situation in Gaza, which led to widespread calls to boycott the competition.
Israel’s entry also stoked further controversy due to the original lyrics of their song, initially titled ‘October Rain’. Performed by Eden Golan, it appeared to contain references to the victims of Hamas’ October 7 attacks and was barred from performance due to breaking rules on political neutrality.
Israel was finally confirmed to compete after changes were made to the lyrics and the song’s title was changed to ‘Hurricane’.
Recently, the organisers doubled down on their choice, with the EBU saying: “I fully agree it is a family event and the great thing about this music competition is that it’s all about values. It’s about uniting onstage all of these young talents, these participants, and they do great. It’s about diversity and inclusion.
“But there are competition rules and you need to follow the competition rules and take decisions based on these competition rules. If you were to exclude Kan outside of these competition rules, that would have been a political decision, as such, which we cannot take.”
The controversy continued when The Netherlands’ Joost Klein was disqualified from the contest after being accused of making verbal threats towards a female member of production crew. This was the first time in the contest’s history that a contestant was disqualified before the final.
Klein was placed under investigation by the organisers the day before the contest due to an “incident” and was not allowed to perform his song ‘Europapa’ during the final dress rehearsal.
The Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS also released a statement. “We have taken note of the disqualification by the EBU. AVOTROS finds the disqualification disproportionate and is shocked by the decision. We deeply regret this and will come back to this later.”