Bulgaria achieved its first ever Eurovision win at the 70th annual song contest after a nail-biting final in Vienna, Austria, while the UK finished in last place, marking yet another disappointing result.
A host of colourful and controversial acts representing 25 countries battled it out at the grand final on Saturday (16 May), but it was singer DARA who triumphed with her dance-pop song “Bangaranga”. She won with a total of 516 points, beating Israel’s second-place score of 343.
It was something of a shock result, given that Finland’s duo Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen, and Australia’s pop star Delta Goodrem, were widely viewed as the two favourites vying to win the contest.
From Greece’s zany entry Akylas and his rapid-fire track “Ferto”, to Serbia’s chilling metal song “Kraj Mene” performed by LAVINA and Moldova’s intense rapper Satoshi with “Viva, Moldova!”, there were plenty of eccentric entries.
Sadly to both the judges and the public, the UK’s representative Look Mum No Computer, real name Sam Battle, was clearly on the wrong side of eccentric as he received the dreaded “nul points” score in the public vote and came dead last.
Following his performance of song “Eins, Zwei, Drei”, a number of viewers at home shared their disdain on social media, with one complaining that Look Mum No Computer was “the worst entry ever”.
“I’m so sorry we entered this guys, honestly we all feel sick,” one fan wrote, as another joked: “Not sure the [EU] will even let us rejoin after this.”
Much of the build-up to this year’s Eurovision final was overshadowed once again by controversy surrounding the participation of Israel, as five countries withdrew in protest over its war on Gaza.
Ireland, Spain, Iceland, Slovenia and the Netherlands boycotted the event, with Ireland’s broadcaster showing a Eurovision-themed episode of Father Ted instead of the final, and Spain airing its own music special, The House of Music.
A number of demonstrations also took place in Vienna in the week leading up to the Eurovision final. In the Austrian capital this week, hundreds of people gathered at Venediger Au, a park on the outskirts of Vienna, for a No Stage for Genocide event organised by Palestine Solidarity Austria.
Israel’s national broadcaster also received a formal warning from Eurovision organisers after it encouraged viewers to “vote 10 times”. The Israeli public broadcaster, known as Kan, was found to have broken the rules of the song contest on Friday (8 May) when it shared videos on social media encouraging fans to support its 2026 entry, Noam Bettan.
Bettan ended up coming in second place for the second year running, a result that will no doubt draw scrutiny from Israel’s critics.
Speaking to The Independent ahead of the song contest, DARA said that a win for Bulgaria would be “extraordinary”.
“What drives me just as much is the idea of Bulgaria being seen. Really seen,” she said. “We are a small country with an enormous cultural soul – ancient, complex, stubborn in the best sense. We have a musical heritage that the world has barely scratched the surface of.
“If ‘Bangaranga’ can be the song that makes someone in Manchester or Edinburgh or Brighton pull out their phone and look up Bulgaria – look up its music, its coast, its literature, its people – then I’ve already achieved something real.”
She explained the meaning behind “Bangaranga” as having its origins in Jamaican slang: “It means uproar, commotion, a beautiful kind of disorder. It has this raw, phonetic power that bypasses translation – you feel it before you understand it.”
DARA continued: We wanted a song that could land in Vienna or London or anywhere and hit you physically before it hit you intellectually. When I think about what it truly is for me, at its deepest level, I keep coming back to the kukeri – the ancient Bulgarian ritual where men dress in extraordinary costumes of bells and fur and animal masks, and move through villages at the start of the year making the most ferocious noise imaginable. The purpose is to scare the bad spirits away.”
The singer first rose to attention in her home country after finishing third on the Bulgarian X Factor when she was 16, and was signed to a record label where she released music in both Bulgarian and English.
She has achieved a string of number one singles in Bulgaria, while her latest album, ADHDARA, was inspired by her diagnosis as an adult with ADHD.
“That album was about owning every contradictory part of yourself: the chaos, the sensitivity, the fire,” she said. “It was terrifying and liberating in equal measure. And now here I am, taking all of that to Eurovision in Vienna, representing Bulgaria. I still find it hard to believe… in the best possible way.”
