The 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest concluded overnight with a clear victory for Bulgarian pop star Dara and her song “Bangaranga,” with 516 points. This score reflects a combination of votes awarded by a music industry ‘expert panel’ and a public vote from across Europe.
As in 2025, the public vote helped push Israel into second place (343 votes) in what—as in recent iterations of the competition—has been seen as a gesture of solidarity with the embattled Jewish State. Under European Broadcasting Union (EBU) competition rules, an actual win for Israeli singer Noam Bettan would formally entitle Israel to host Eurovision 2027. With his ballad ‘Michelle’ in 8th place before the public vote was added on a country-by-country basis, its rise up the table was probably making the organisers extremely nervous.
Since the October 7th, 2023 Hamas-led pogrom, campaigners have sought to expel Israeli acts from competition. This edition saw five past participants, including Ireland, Slovenia, and ‘Eurovision giant’ Spain, boycott the event through a mixture of non-entry and refusing to transmit the main show and its earlier semi-finals. Austrian police have also intervened to protect this year’s competition from protestors inside and outside the venue.
Ultimately, the win for Bulgaria should take the contest to Sofia, sparing the EBU a major headache over the host location.
Also prompting controversy was third-placed Romanian rock anthem ‘Choke Me’ by Alexandra Căpitănescu—with lyrics including “love me, make my lungs explode”—which has been accused of celebrating sexual violence.
