Her Eurovision winning song “Wild Dances” charted in 18 countries across Europe and was certified diamond in Ukraine for selling half a million copies.
And now Eurovision 2004 winner Ruslana has turned her attention to the next generation and named her favourites among Eurovision 2017’s crop of 42 acts.
Top of the list? Moscow-born, Bulgarian Eurovision star Kristian Kostov.
Speaking about meeting the young star at the London Eurovision Party 2017, she called him “very nice” and said that he told her “he fell in love with her.”
She also complimented Poland‘s Kasia Mos for her voice, Italy‘s Francesco Gabbani and Romania‘s Ilinca & Alex Florea.
The Ukrainian Eurovision winner also had high praise for Belarus‘s Naviband.
Speaking to a group of Ukrainian journalists on Tuesday morning, she said: “I like the duet from Belarus – a very bright duet, very light music.”
Ruslana also touched on Eurovision 2017’s theme “Celebrate Diversity”, saying the stage and wide variety of genres on offer will make this year’s contest very diverse.
“In my opinion, this year’s Eurovision will be interesting. And it’s not only because of production. I looked carefully at all participants, and it looks like Europe will look very cool this year. And in general – I’m sure that this year’s Eurovision will be very diverse!”
RUSLANA AT EUROVISION 2017
As Ukraine’s first-ever Eurovision winner, Ruslana is set to play a key role during the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. She will appear as the interval act at Semi-Final 2. She played a similarly prominent role the last time Ukraine hosted, opening the Grand Final and performing at the interval.
That honour now falls to Ukraine‘s second Eurovision winner Jamala. As the reigning Queen of Eurovision, she’ll open Semi-Final 1, perform at the interval and act as the interval act at the Grand Final too.
In the true spirit of Eurovision, Ukraine’s leading ladies will come together to celebrate diversity on stage and welcome Europe to Ukraine.
GET MORE UKRAINE NEWS HERE
Photo Credit: Ukrinform
I’m starting to sense that the Italians are worried. And they have to be 😉
Wow, support for Bulgaria coming from an Eurovision winner! This is impressive.
I am not surprised that Italians are swearing and insulting left and right. Ruslana places another song ahead of occidentali’s karma, how dare she? 🙂
:)))))
She said she likes Italy’s and no one said nothing against Bulgaria is this comment section. Why do people have to start the WW3 in every single article? =s
Ruslana only said positive and nice things about the entries in this article, so for you to call her a b*tch says more about you than it does about her
I started to dislike ruslana cause it’s not nice of her to give credit to some entries while everybody working hard to represent their country. For sure ruslana wouldn’t want to give any credits to other contestants if it was the year 2004 when she was working hard to represent Ukraine or wouldn’t like it any other stars giving credit to other entries over her’s. Oh how she says there is cute guy from bulgaria said he is in love with her, childish, how old are you ruslana, 17? No. I really liked ruslana but now not anymore, we fans… Read more »
Really? She just gave the name of some of her favorites this year. Something that many people do. That doesn’t mean that she is ignoring or not acknowledging the other contestants.
Ugly b*tch
Why?
Because she´s part of the host-team and so she had to be neutral – not very professional behaviour imo
comment was meant for amor a, sorry…
Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Romania, Belarus = I like her taste.
I don’t know what to think about Ruslana being more visible than Jamala. Maybe she was saving Jamala who was busy with her wedding. I like to think that they are a team.
Really becoming obnoxious now.
Ruslana is really patriotic for Ukraine, to the point I’m surprised she acknowledged Kristian lol
I can’t wait for Ruslana to judge the singers by their devotion to their homeland.
She is. Nobody in Ukraine cares if you’re of Russian descent or if you come from Russia, that’s not any kind of a rarity with Russians being the biggest ethnic minority at around 15-20% of population. By the way, Ruslana’s mother is ethnic Russian.
The things that Ukrainian?s aren’t really fond of are current Russian authority and casually arrogant attitude of done overly nationalistic Russian citizens
Good. I’d rather have Ruslana than another Timberlake in the interval
Wild Dances was Ruslana’s song, with the jungle drums and stuff 🙂
but yeah that she likes the theme Celebrate Diversity
Yay!! So Ruslana won in 2003 and 2004 both?? What was her 2003 song called?
Eagle-eyed but unfortunately a typo! Clearly losing my mind over how dazzling Wild Dances was!!
Ruslana won in 2004,not 2003
Updated thanks 🙂