Austria has won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Switzerland.
JJ took top prize on 436 points with the emotional song Wasted Love.
The Israeli entry, New Day Will Rise, sung by Yuval Raphael, was second on 357 points. A suspense-filled awarding of viewer votes saw the Austrian entry overtake the Israelis at the last minute. Estonia’s Tommy Cash came third overall on 356 points with Espresso Macchiato.
The Austrian singer, real name Johannes Pietsch, opted for a black and white staging in Basel, which looked like a disastrous boat trip as he sang about someone he cared about being overwhelmed.
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Vienna-born JJ is an Austrian-Filipino opera singer and has been studying at the Music and Art Private University of Vienna. He co-wrote the winning song with Teodora Spiric and Thomas Turner. JJ has previously appeared under his given name on The Voice UK.
Previous Austrian wins include drag artist Conchita Wurst in 2014 with Rise Like A Phoenix, and 1966’s Udo Jurgens with Merci Cherie.
Switzerland, which hosted the first ever Eurovision song contest in 1956, was the venue this year after Nemo won in Malmö last year with their song The Code. Austria will be expected to host in 2026, with Vienna having twice held the competition before.
The winner was determined by a combination of viewer votes and juries made up of music industry professionals across European countries, who cast their votes based on rehearsals.
Austria, Switzerland and France were top three countries after the jury votes concluded and before the viewer votes were announced.
The Irish jury’s ‘douze points’ were awarded to Austria, as announced by Westlife singer and broadcaster Nicky Byrne.
Sweden’s failure to take the top prize - they finished fourth - means they remain tied with Ireland as the most successful country in the competition’s history, with seven wins each.
Earlier, a song contest crew member was hit with paint after two people tried to rush on stage to disrupt Raphael’s performance, organisers said. The 24-year-old Israeli singer is a survivor of the October 7th attacks, and was greeted with both cheers and boos on Saturday evening.
A spokesman for SRG SSR (Swiss Broadcasting Company) said: “At the end of the Israeli performance a man and a woman tried to get over a barrier on to the stage. They were stopped. One of the two agitators threw paint and a crew member was hit. The crew member is fine and nobody was injured. The man and the woman were taken out of the venue and handed over to the police.”
Israel was awarded 297 points viewer votes and led the leaderboard for a period of time.
Before the event began, Sweden, Austria and Israel were considered among the favourites in the song contest, final.
Ireland failed to make it beyond the semi-final on Thursday night, despite high hopes for the catchy Laika Party performed by Norwegian-born Emmy Kristiansen.
Before the final, bookmakers give Sweden’s entry, comedy trio KAJ, a 42 per cent chance of winning the world’s biggest music event.
Other front runners included Finland’s Erika Vikman with the innuendo-laden German language song Ich Komme, France’s Louane with Maman, and Dutch singer Claude Kiambe’s C’est La Vie.
There was also buzz around host country Switzerland’s Zoe Me with Voyage and Malta’s Miriana Conte, who changed her song’s title, Kant – due to a complaint about its similarity to a certain English word – to Serving.
During the week, several pro-Palestinian protests were held in Basel. Protesters have been calling for people to boycott the event because Israel is represented amid the ongoing military bombardment of Gaza.
The European Broadcasting Union has resisted calls to exclude Israel from the competition. The union previously banned Russia from the Eurovision after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
On Thursday, the Basel government said more than 200,000 people have visited the city so far for the contest, after the competition returned to Switzerland, which first hosted it in 1956 in Lugano. – Additional reporting: PA/Reuters/Guardian
