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Eurovision’s 2024 winner calls for show hopeful to be AXED just days ahead of Contest final
The crowds protested the act
EUROVISION 2024 winner Nemo has called for Israel to be axed from this year’s competition, just days before the final is set to take place.
Nemo made history last year as the first non-binary artist to win Eurovision.
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Now, they’re using their platform to speak out against Israel’s participation in the 2025 event hosted in Basel.
“I personally feel like it doesn’t make sense that Israel is a part of this Eurovision. And of Eurovision in general right now,” Nemo told HuffPost UK.
“I don’t know how much I want to get into detail, but I would say, I don’t support the fact that Israel is part of Eurovision at the moment.”
Nemo later followed up with a more detailed written statement, stating: “I support the call for Israel’s exclusion from the Eurovision Song Contest.
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"Israel’s actions are fundamentally at odds with the values that Eurovision claims to uphold - peace, unity, and respect for human rights.”
Their comments come as controversy continues to mount over Israel’s inclusion amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Israel’s 2025 Eurovision entrant Yuval Raphael is herself a survivor of the Nova festival attack in October 2023.
She faced protests and death threats at the Eurovision opening ceremony in Basel over the weekend.
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The protestors confronted Raphael as she walked the ‘turquoise carpet,’ a symbolic start to Eurovision week.
She performed her song New Day Will Rise at the live semi-final tonight.
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In response to the controversy, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) released a statement, saying: “We understand the concerns and deeply held views around the current conflict in the Middle East.
"The EBU is not immune to global events but, together with our members, it is our role to ensure the contest remains, at its heart, a universal event that promotes connections, diversity and inclusion through music.
"We all aspire to keep the Eurovision Song Contest positive and inclusive and aspire to show the world as it could be, rather than how it necessarily is.”
But pressure on the EBU has increased as more than 70 former Eurovision artists including previous winners have signed an open letter demanding that Israel be barred from participating.
Tonight's second semi-final will see 16 acts take to the stage at Eurovision, which is being held this year in Basel, Switzerland.
Once they have all performed, votes will be thrown open and 10 will be picked to go through to Saturday night's Grand Final 2025.
The UK is one of 'the big five' that has already made it through.
From Tuesday’s semi-final, ten acts advanced to the final: Albania, Estonia, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, favourites Sweden and Ukraine.
Five acts were eliminated: Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, and Slovenia.
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The second Eurovision semi-final airs on BBC One this Thursday at 8pm.
Alongside the 16 competing acts, the UK’s entry, Remember Monday, will perform their song What The Hell Just Happened.
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