Eurovision 2024 – Wild rumours

MALMÖ (Daily newspaper): Twitter/X is about to go off the rails. There is an extremely tense atmosphere in the press room. The general exam is getting close. The planned press meeting with the five final countries and the presenters Åkerman and Mede has been cancelled. Whoever thought that this year’s big Eurovision drama was going to unfold in the streets of Malmö was apparently completely wrong: right now everything is about what has happened to Joost “Europapa” Klein, the Dutch artist who has suddenly disappeared without a trace.

He was not present at today’s important trial review. He has deleted a lot of Eurovision-related stuff from social media. All we know is that it happened something: “An investigation has indeed been launched by the EBU following an incident. We await the outcome of this investigation and do not want to say anything about it until then,” a representative of the Dutch delegation told Dutch media.

At the press conference last night, after advancing to Saturday’s final, Joost hid his head under the Dutch flag. When the Israeli delegation was asked a critical question they did not want to answer, however, he emerged from the flag and said “Why not?”.

After this, there has been silence from the Dutch artist. True, he appeared for a brief moment, during the flag raising at the test review, but then he disappeared.

So now rthe yyktemakers have free leeway, and they spin like hell. The main rumor is that Joost should have been disqualified for beating down an Israeli photographer. Apparently because he was provoked. Another rumor is that he allegedly knocked one down Swedish photographer. This rumor comes, among other things, from the well-known Israeli talk show host Guy Pines and is to be reproduced by the Israeli media. But this has not been confirmed either. A third rumor says he is unhappy because he has been placed fifth in tomorrow’s final, between Luxemburg’s Tali Golergant, who was born in Israel, and Israel’s own Eden Golan. Naturally, this has not been confirmed either. None of this has been confirmed, although someone is now writing confirmed on Twitter, to pretend it is.

The latest rumor is now that the Dutch flag will be removed from the dressing room.

Edit: At 18:21 another rumor appeared, this time in the Swedish Aftonbladet. Joost is supposedly accused of being violent towards a female television employee. But neither do they have any open sources that can confirm the story.

What happened? Is he subject to a smear campaign or is he subject to a support campaign? In any case, he now receives massive support in social media. On Instagram, the comment fields overflow with “Justice for Joost”, on Twitter/X it says “Fuck EBU”.

There is no doubt that this year’s Eurovision has been difficult and scandal-ridden. The large demonstrations may have been out on the streets, but inside the arena the friction between the delegations has been palpable. It was perhaps inevitable that it would eventually explode. If it has exploded, then. As said, nothing has been confirmed.

“Europapa” is about the belief in the European joint project, the song is a tribute to Europe. Now it may have led to the biggest Eurovision scandal of all time. It just shows how acutely political it is to conduct an apolitical song contest in today’s political reality.