She’s a well-known Lithuanian singer and a contestant in this year’s Eurovizijos Atranka.
And now Mia has used her platform to question the fairness of her country’s Eurovision selection — including its rules and judging panel — in an interview with Lithuanian newspaper 15min.lt.
Mia opened up to 15min shortly after filming the second heat of the show, which will air this weekend. Now making her fourth appearance in the show, Mia says she doesn’t want to hold back and is ready to speak the truth.
“All performers know of the underwater ‘Eurovision’ currents,” she says. “But nobody talks about it aloud.”
She’d lost before the final even started
Mia details her appearance in the 2015 final — which consisted of just her and Vaidas & Monika. She says that she’d lost before the show even took place.
“I can say that in 2015, a few days before the final, I learned that I had no chance to win,” she says. “I do not know why I was lying down then….I do not know why I did not speak. I needed to.”
The singer claims that days before the final staff called her in asking what she would like in exchange for Vaidas and Monika sing a duet together. The powers that be were essentially writing her out of the script.
Jokingly, Mia suggested they give her “one million”. Staff said that there was no money to give her but they suggested a place at the prestigious “Slavianskij Bazar”music festival in Belarus.
She does not clarify precisely who those staff members were, but says they came from the production team.
Mia was shocked that they could change the rules just like that, moving from three competitors with an equal chance of winning to two-against-one.
“When Vaidas Baumila and Monika Linkyte became a duet in the final, I remained alone,” she says. “I was so nervous, it was very painful for me.”
At one point she considered walking on stage and saying “Thank you”. She wanted to leave without even performing.
A questionable jury
Earlier this month fan favourite Erica Jennings walked out of the competition, citing a lack of experience among jury members.
And Mia has added fuel to the fire by claiming jury members may lack autonomy.
Mia recounts one alarming story. One year after the show was over, Mia’s good friend, who was part of the jury, said that he really liked her song and performance. When she asked why she got such a low score from the jury, he told her that he had to write the scores down the way he was told.
That year, after a great performance and getting pretty much no negative feedback from the jury, Mia only earned a score of 4.
Like Erica Jennings, the singer is not happy that sometimes the producers invite people who are not even related to music to be part of the jury. They talk about clothes and styling, which can easily be changed in the final performance. She says that on other shows the same people never say anything bad about her, but in Eurovizijos Atranka something just changes.
Mia is still in the competition and doesn’t want to withdraw: she feels she must stay out of allegiance to her fans and her songwriter. However, she says that if changes aren’t made in the pre-selection in the future she will not return.
What do you think about this situation? Does Mia still have a chance of winning Eurovizijos Atranka? Is she right to speak up? And what do you think about the 2015 selection? Let us know in the comments section below.
If 2015 revelations are true, then I’m surprised she even considered coming back, not to mention eventually doing it.
If she wants to sing at Eurovision, them presumably this might be her only way to get to do that.
I feel bad for this lady. I remember when she competed against Vaidas and Vilija in 2014. She had to sing a poor rendition of Attention(which was co-written by Vilija). The following year and she’s still not the favorite to win. I think its fair for her to express her disappointment.
We’ve been saying it for year. Lithuania, fix up your selection process. You don’t need so many shows or so many songs.
“She got 4 points from the jury”, well, it seems like history will repeat itself again, even when she spoke out. She’ll do well this year, but she won’t win. The Juries were never on her side, despite her being jury friendly.
I support Mia, but her songs are always outdated and boring :/
I would agree on the outdated part but they were definitely NOT boring. She has released some really great bops. loved ”Sacrifice”, ”Dangerous” and ”Take a look at me now”. definitely one of these deserved to win. every national selection she brings a really good song
She never entered the selection with the song titled ‘Dangerous’. Perhaps you had in mind ‘Say you love me’ ?
I thought it was unfair toowhen suddenly, boom, they teamed up as a duo to take the win.
1. Belarus
2. Armenia
3. Lithuania
4. Ukraine/Romania/Latvia ??? hehe 😀
How could I forget Moldova.. silly me (:
The Lithuanian nf is such a mess. What a shame for a European public service broadcaster!
Latvia and Estonia show how it’s done right.
It’s a good point. Its neighbours are so far ahead in terms of NFs!
In the first selection jury was good. The second selection – the commission is inappropriate to evaluate the singers.
Sorry, but I have to go Grammar November Alpha Zulu India here. Well, more like Semantics.
Sayinig “Eurovizijas jury” is just like saying “President of the United”, when you mean “United States” or just “States” would be fine. Here you basically just alleged her to saying that she questions the jury of the whole Eurovision. You should just use Atranka, if you want to survive with just one word
I always wondered what the *actual* name of the Lithuanian nf is… Eurovizijos? Eurovizija? Atranka? Nacionaline atranka? Eurovizijos atranka?
Eurovizijos dainu konkurso nacionaline atranka (The National Selection of Eurovision Song Contest) 🙂
Belarus, Armenia, Lithuania… who’s next?? c’mon Ukraine :>
Who’s next? My money’s on Spain for second year in a row. The Mirela / Manel Navarro hysteria was hilarious.
This skinny legend better EXPOSE those incompetent jurors. They’re the reason why Fusedmarc won last year, they basically convinced the public who initially wasn’t here for them that they were the right choice. As for what happened to her in 2015, she was absolutely done wrong. I don’t understand why LRT won’t change their current selection process, which has been harshly criticized by both participants and viewers since its introduction three years ago, in favor or something fairer and shorter.
The answer is one: money 🙂
Lithuania and Belarus being messy. Are we hoping for drama from Latvia, Ukraine, or Poland?
Eh, Latvia and Poland are fairly clean.
Latvia served plenty of drama last year with spotify vote rigging!!
And Santa develica or whatever being a worshipper of Satan !!
I really had enough of Eastern European national selections this year.
They should all do internal selections- that’s it
Mind your own business and don’t patronize half a continent. Nobody’s forcing you to read articles that some of us actually enjoy.
It is entertainment for you, but trauma for artists like Mia or Belarussian artists who dropped out to protest corruption or even those who were cut in the middle in their audition disrrspectfully. Same goes for aArmenian artists who put their heart and soul in their work and will lose to deep pockets. I am patronizing no-one, I just want to spare real artists who can try out their chances elsewhere
I love this t sis. This year is full of drama and im LOVING IT
#thisoneaintme
Thanks, Lukas, for this article.
What an awful set of circumstances. Mia, keep going and staying strong.
YES! It takes a brave woman to speak out like this…especially when the competition is still going on. I hope this doesn’t mean she was eliminated in the pre-recorded second heat.
She is currently in 7th spot and needs to finish 4th or higher in televote to guarantee a spot for herself!!