Eurovision Song Contest 2026 crowns shock winner as Israel finishes in second place

Following undoubtedly the most controversial and chaotic Eurovision Song Contest in its history for its 70th anniversary, we have our winner.

Tonight, as the 2026 Grand Final went live from Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria, following JJ’s win in 2025, Bulgaria surprised everyone in lifting the trophy, having secured a whopping 516 total points from both jury and audience votes.

The country was represented by 27-year-old Darina Nikolaeva Yotova, aka Dara, with the catchy pop song Bangaranga.

As for the runners-up, Noam Bettan of Israel came second with his song, Michelle, having finished on 343 points, gained largely from the audience vote in a nail-biting reveal.

In third place was Romania’s Alexandra Capitanescu, whose divisive song Choke Me earned 296 points.

Basking in her winning moment, Dara performed her winning song for a second time before predecessor JJ handed her the contest’s microphone-shaped trophy, saying: ‘Congratulations, girl!’

Dara replied, ‘Oh my God,’ as she raised the award proudly above her head.

Tonight’s final, hosted by Victoria Swarovski and Michael Ostrowski, saw 25 entrants take to the stage with high hopes of emerging victorious – even after a rehearsal plagued by technical blunders and mishaps just hours prior.

For the United Kingdom, Look Mum No Computer, aka Sam Battle, performed his lively techno tune Eins, Zwei, Drei, which received mixed reactions from his home country in the lead-up.

Alas, people were right to have low expectations, as the musician scored a measly one point from Ukraine in the jury vote, placing us right at the bottom of the leaderboard after receiving zero from the audience vote.

Still, Sam was in high spirits, clapping for the other artists throughout the results as viewers at home laughed at the outcome, joking that it was ‘abysmal, as usual’.

Meanwhile, with La Voix as the spokesperson, the UK offered 12 points to France.

It’d be an understatement to say that Eurovision has made headlines this year.

Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Slovenia all withdrew from the competition, as did Spain, which was part of the Big Five, the countries automatically granted a final slot due to financial contributions. Consequently, the Big Four now comprises the UK, France, Germany, and Italy.

Iceland and the Netherlands chose to still broadcast the contest.

Standing firm, the absent contenders announced a boycott after Israel’s participation was confirmed last December, which has been heavily criticised in the months since due to the war in Gaza and the number of Palestinian people killed.

According to reports, this has sparked the largest protest since the Eurovision in 1970.

This evening, their entrant Noam performed third. While many expected him to be drowned out by booing amid demonstrations across the city, the reaction in the room was surprisingly positive, as the crowd cheered and waved Israeli flags.

However, when his final points were unveiled, there was no silencing the disapproving reaction from fans as they learned of the outcome, as it came down to the wire between Israel and Bulgaria, the latter needing 140 points to overtake, which they managed.

Israel had already got off on the wrong foot with Eurovision bosses ahead of the Semi-Finals, having been slapped with a warning for breaking the rules.

Broadcaster KAN was chastised for several promotional videos that appeared on social media sites such as X, in which Noam encouraged viewers to use all of their votes on him.

The 28-year-old singer recorded the promo message in the languages of Azerbaijani, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian.

Eurovision Executive Director Martin Green later confirmed that KAN had been reprimanded, adding in a statement: ‘Within 20 minutes, we had contacted the Israeli delegation and asked them to immediately stop all distribution of the videos and remove them from all platforms where they had been published. They did so.’

It came after the contest had already implemented several changes to the voting rules to ‘strengthen trust and transparency’ in a major overhaul of the voting framework after the 2025 event in Basel, Switzerland.

Such changes included forbidding participating broadcasters from attempting to influence outcomes and ‘enhancing’ technical safeguards to prevent fraudulent or coordinated voting activity.

Eurovision fans will have to wait and see if Israel is allowed to return in 2027 following three years of outside pressure on the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), which, despite proudly declaring itself to be ‘apolitical’, banned Russia from taking part in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine. This was not a decision sought by the organisers, but one made after other participating nations threatened to drop out.

There has been much speculation about the reasons for refusing to ban Israel, including the fact that one of Eurovision’s most prominent sponsors is the Israeli beauty brand Moroccanoil and has been since 2020.

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