In an interview with France’s RTL, Mika has revealed that he previously said “Non!” to Eurovision. Actually, that’s a non, non, non and non, as he has been asked four times.
The Lebansese-British pop star says he is absolutely not interested in competing for the United Kingdom, France or any other country. Apparently the singer behind worldwide hits such as Grace Kelly and We are golden has a very negative image of the show.
The 31-year old artist, also well-known in France as a judge on The Voice, revealed his feelings this morning in an interview on the RTL radio station. When the hosts asked him about representing France at Eurovision, he immeditately said no and added, “Because most of the entries sent to the contest are shameful, they are pure sh*t!”
The interviewer sounded quite surprised by Mika’s reaction and wanted to know more about Mika’s harsh words. “So why don’t you participate with a very good song?” he asked. Mika replied by throwing some more shade on Eurovision: “I don’t know if it’s allowed. It’s not part of the game, you must do terrible things.”
And about those four invitations? They all came from the UK (so the BBC).
So, with superstar Indilla saying no thank you, another big star declines participation. Will France pick an unknown in 2016 like Twin Twin or Lisa Angell? We’ll just have to wait for now.
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Amir would be a great pick.
Just kidding, LOL, Amir is already picked
Mika is a great singer and lovely person.He might not be passing a great period in his career, but Who has not? .He has the right to do whatever he wants. The only thing I regret is the way he expressed himself cause he seems to be very kind and diplomatic.
And oh, he doesn’t have a hit since… like 2009 or so. Star? Doing a duet with wannabe Ariana Grande? Gimme a break…
And after talking tons of crap about Eurovision, he goes and has a pic with the winner of 2014. Hipocrisy and ridiculousness at its highest. You can’t take someone seriously with that lack of congruence.
That’s funny he should say that, cause most of his songs sound very Eurovision. If most of Eurovision song are sh*t, he can draw his own logical conclusion… 😉
Regardless of what Mika openly said … I find it disappointing that freedom of speech is sadly a questionable value on this subject … If you are so open about how much you don’t like Eurovision, fans will not take that lightly and hate you back … the same fans who screamed for Sweden to win during the final night to prevent Russia from winning this year … the same fans who are angry that Sweden won … because televoters wanted Italy … Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? And to remind you: Mika was asked by UK and France to… Read more »
Mika is popular in the world only because he is from UK. Many singers from UK are popular internationally.
didn’t he say he wanna represent lebanon in eurovision before? this guy sure changes his mind a lot.
@mad-professor: “There are bad songs like Love Injected”. You really are mad…
As Eurovision and Mika are my biggest passions I had a great day yesterday XD As ESC fan I don’t share his opinions obviously and was very mad yesterday. I know that he doesn’t like Eurovision very much, but this generalizing offensive statements were something else. You can’t call some songs shit, some are so dear to my heart, and I get pissed if someone indirectly calls them crap, even if I’m fan of that person. I so hate this generalizing bad opinions, from everyone. You just can’t call all songs shit, this isn’t personal taste anymore. And I don’t… Read more »
@ random.sage2.0
Thanks for your reply, but I’m not Chris from Wiwibloggs:) The members of the Wiwibloggs have special symbols (a red flag or sth like that as I remember). I have to change my nick:)
Looking at the chart positions of his latest releases (courtesy of Wikipedia), it’s quite clear that he could use a career boost from Eurovision. He’s one album away from getting dropped from his major label.
Chris (probably from Wiwibloggs) is right. The changes to the contest are new and ppl aren’t used to taking it seriously yet. Give a decade or two and ppl will change suit.
Also, we can agree that the top 3 this year were all famous in their cultures – not just countries (Polina Gagarina, Mans, & Il Vovo). Hopefully other countries would follow this trend and up their talent &/or expectations…
Chris (probably from Wiwibloggs) is right. The changes to the contest are new and ppl aren’t used to taking it seriously yet. Give a decade or two and ppl will change suit.
Also, we can agree that the top 3 this year were all famous in their cultures – not just countries (Polina Gagarina, Mans, & Il Vovo). Hopefully other countries would follow this trend and up their talent &/or expectations.
“It’s not part of the game, you must do terrible things.”
Well, nothing as terrible as singing a duet with Ariana Grande. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_obuDew2Xxk
There have been so many singers who entered Eurovision and worked very hard to present themselves, their people and countries in the best possible way. And then you have this arrogant dickhead coming and spitting on all these singers (including the beloved Patricia Kaas). “What I am doing is amazing and what hundreds of singers who have taken part in Eurovision is shit”. I’m glad he will not represent France, United Kingdom or any other country. It would be too embarrassing for these countries to be represented by someone like him.
It is a complex topic. Generally, Eurovision has never been innovative in terms of music. There are always some exceptions, e.g. Belgium this year (some may disagree). Nevertheless, we should remember that it is a TV SHOW for the whole public. Thus, it has to present a mediocre people’s taste. Otherwise, the ratings would decrease dramatically. The ratings and the income. I treat Eurovision as an entertainment. In terms of that, it fulfills my expectations. The quality of Eurovision’s pop music has developed very much since the introduction of the juries in 2009. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that not… Read more »
@bavarson what does that have to do with the article? Please keep your offtopic opinion somewhere else.
Mika shouldn’t be talking he’s a mere one hit wonder, there are better songs on Eurovision than on his whole discography. He’s entitled on his own opinion but he doesn’t say why he’s calling it shit other than shameful songs. Are there that much shameful songs in his eyes.
Sweden performed 10th, Russia 25th, Italy 27th. World has 13 million Swedes, 150 million Russians and over 100 million Italians. That’s why jury is needed at ESC. Sweden is a worthy winner.
Yes, there are bad songs like Love Injected and Amanecer, but there are also great songs like A Monster Like Me and Tonight Again. Not that I’d like to see him represent either the UK or Italy at Eurovision, but if he sent a good song he would do well. He’s acting as if Eurovision would taint his (already poor) music.
@Fatima
Guy Freeman has only chosen two entries since his return (Molly and Electro Velvet) and both of those were through schemes looking for new talent so the likelihood of him having approached Mika is about 0%.
Also, I didn’t know giving the contest so much air time across TV and radio was treating it like a joke. By that logic, every broadcaster bar SVT treats the contest like a joke.
I used to like Mika…now not so much.
I hate when fame hungry people are willing to do anything to get famous.
I remember in 2007, when Lebanon was going to compete, he said he wanted to do it.
Now that he has become more famous, he doesn’t.
Freddy Mercury wannabie is all.
What makes him so special? Never heard of him until now. And if the entries are s*** then if he sent a good song, which to him would be better than everyone else’s, wouldn’t he win? Sorry but he is not a professional if he talks trash about other artists and acts like he is above it.
Well i agree with Mika’s words.
Eurovision is crap, but there are also some great songs, with great performance.
I can understand Mika is ”afraid” to join Eurovision. He won’t be able to win, not even with a great song. Eurovision would only harm his name.
France really is running out of options and I think the future looks very bleak for the French as far as Eurovision is concerned. But let’s face it, they don’t care, they’re not interested, viewing figures are embarrassingly low (From a French point of view.) and their public broadcaster is seemingly embarrassed to be in Eurovision (Remember Nathalie André’s comments only a few weeks ago?). I highly doubt France will ever win again to be honest with you. They’ve given up. They are only taking part because they feel they have to. It’s official, I 100%, whole heartedly give up… Read more »
The fact that the BBC have approached the same artist four times demonstrates the disrepute into which the contest has fallen in the Guy Freeman era. It’s a situation of their own making. If BBC TV, Radio and News stopped treating the event only as a joke, Mika might have said yes.
Bit indeed what I wanted to point out earlier is that Kendji Girac is amazing and he would be a good option for eurovision.
Joan, he used to be a bit famous here in the UK, he had one really big song called Grace Kelly, then a few flops and is a bit obscure now…
What a prick though. I’d like to think he’ll realise that he’s been an absolute arse at some point.
You know, he probably watched it in 2001. Thought that it was awful and just bases his opinions on that. There’s amazing songs now. Amazing. Do you know how many of my top 10 songs ever are from ESC or NF? 10. All 10. He’s probably just scared he’ll flop like Edurne because he’s a one-hit wonder.
After what he said, I kinda want Kendji Girac (The Voice of France winner, mentored by Mika) to go to Eurovision, do really well and then make him swallow all his words, would be fun to watch
I just listened to We Are Golden and Grace Kelly. Sounds like what Denmark sent this year (but much worse IMO). Really, those two Mika songs were terrible (I don’t think he would be insulted given his own word choice when talking about Eurovision).
The songs kind of sound like the ’60s but I better shut up about that given how much I’ve defended 80’s-ish songs on here.
The Voice of France airs on the same time slot as Eurovision and since he’s one of the coaches, its only natural for him to throw a lot of shade at it. Anyways the main reason why big stars don’t wanna represent UK anymore is because of its bad image plus BBC hasn’t noticed that the contest has now entered a new age. Its evolve a lot that if you send a decent song but present it badly(staging) or get singers that can’t interpret it well on stage(performance) then you’ll likely land in the bottom.
Like, when you know something is bad, and you don’t want to change that, you are big loser. Huge appreciation for some artists that have tried to levitate the quality of this contest such as Anouk, Loreen, Guy Sebastian, Raphael Gualazzi, The Common Linnets, Aminata, and others. Maybe Mika thinks his music is the greatest, but those who have been mentioned are far more credible than him.
That’s because France hasn’t been doing well. If France has been successful for many, many, mean years, then I bet many big names would want to participate.
Ironically he has stated in the past that he wants to represent Lebanon in the contest and have them “officially” debut. But if Lebanon will ever participate it clearly will not be with him as their artist. So Lebanon says “non” to you too Mika! Sorry!
I wonder what did he meant about that “doing terrible things” in Eurovision? Does that involve the participation of other European countries? The screw ups of their broadcasters? Mika does relate to common Europeans like the British non fans who looks down on Eurovision today – always negative and cherry picking.
what a loser. He just lost a fan. As if his career is going anywhere…
He clearly hasn’t watched Eurovision or listened to any of its song since 2006 if that’s his honest opinion. I understand he might be out of touch with the trends, but doesn’t he know that being condescendent towards the biggest TV show on Earth isn’t really “in” anymore? Maybe this is a UK thing, since all of these articles of artists criticizing ESC are about british people.
Quite funny since he only has 3 good songs (And they’re all part of the same album).
I have to add something, ‘Merde’ like your whole career.
God bless the Queen! Elizabeth and Conchita should talk the dogsh*t out of Mika and teach him how to work it. Hell, Eurovision is an upgrade for dude.
But, no matter. The UK has Simon Cowell this time. We don’t need no second rates talking bad about the upper class!
What a shame, I actually think that he and his songs would be great for the contest. Oh well, this just goes to show you that with that kind of attitude the UK will never prosper. Sad.
What a jerk. His songs are total rubbish, he’s just afraid because he would end up with nul points. There have been so many amazing songs, has he even listened to any?
I have heard two songs from Mika & I thought they were sh*t. They must be the wrong kind of sh*t.
I was completely ignoring his presence really…And there are ages since the last time i heard both of his 2 hit songs..
The topic here is not about him at all but just for someone who that said this offensive thing about our EuroVision..
We really do him a big favor that we are discussing his sayings here..
He should definitely pay us for promoting him boosting his zero non existent popularity..
My god, he’s gone below even Scott Mills in my estimation
How many people here do not even know him…Makes perfectly sense.. And the fact that he criticized Celine’s Dion career when actually he is in much worse fate than her as he is selling way less cds/singles than her music does…So its really ironic that he dared to speak about Celine.. He only said these statements just to attract fake publicity now that his 15 minutes of fame were long over…Such people like him are so shameless & despicable! He has to feel so thankful that he managed to even be that one hit wonder with having 1-2 major hits… Read more »
Relax! take it eeaaasssyyy, maybe he should listen to his own lyrics
As if he’s setting the world on fire.
I don’t know him. Is he well known in in UK or in France ?