After three months and dozens of performances it has finally come down to this. At the grand final gala of Spain’s talent show/reality show/Eurovision national final Operación Triunfo, Famous Oberogo was voted the winner of the 2018 series.

It was a tense superfinal vote, with just 1% separating Famous from runner-up Alba Reche. Famous received 36% of the vote, while the sultry-voiced Alba was on 35% of the vote.

In third place was Natalia, who also proved a popular superfinalists with 29% of the vote.

The gala show began with the five finalists — including Julia and Sabela  — each gave a solo performance of their choice.

Famous performed “And I am Telling You I’m Not Going”, best known by Jennifer Hudson’s performance from the musical Showgirls. It’s a hearty song and Famous put everything into it, showing off the full extent of his vocal talent. For many viewers, this was the moment when it was obvious that Famous had to win.

Alba Reche performed the Postmodern Jukebox version of Radiohead’s “Creep”. Alba delivered the song in her modern cabaret singer style, sounding like a nightclub chanteuse who’s seen it all, honey. The performance was perhaps not quite the showstopper that the grand final needed, but it was still good.

Natalia also served musical realness. She performed “Never Enough”, originally sung by Loren Allred in The Greatest Showman.  Natalia also used a staple of Eurovision: the projection dress. While we’ve seen projection dresses from Aliona Moon and Sabina Babayeva, the most impressive was Elina Nechayeva’s 3D projection dress in Lisbon.

And the Estonian diva was watching. She responded with a tweet featuring a screenshot of the dress as the Spanish “police report” meme photos. Shady lady! Update: We’ve since learned that the Elina tweet was made by a hacker, attempting to drag the classy Estonian diva into the world of Spanish memes. The rogue tweet has since been taken down.

Then it was time for the bottom two acts to learn their fate. In fifth place was Julia, who had earned only 10% of the vote. Coming next in fourth place was Sabela, with 12% of the vote. This left Alba Reche, Famous and Natalia to face the superfinal.

The three superfinalists reprised the songs they had originally performed at Gala 0, way back in September. Alba sang Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman”, Famous did Stevie Wonder and Ariana’s “Faith”, while Natalia sang Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”.

And after a tense results section, Famous was crowned the king of OT 2018 — and showed that his parents knew what they were doing when they named him Famous.

The OT 2018 finalists will return next week in the Christmas gala. Their performances will include duets of OT songs with their original artists, including Cesár Sampson joining Famous on “Nobody But You”.

And coming up next month will be the OT Eurovision Gala, where Spain will decide its act for Tel Aviv.

What do you think? Are you excited for Famous winning OT 2018? Who would you like to see represent Spain at Eurovision? Sound off below!

Read more Spain Eurovision news here

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Héctor
Héctor
5 years ago

Happy for him! Famous and Alba totally deserved it. I didn’t really expect all that support on Famous.

Talentina Monetta
Talentina Monetta
5 years ago

*pretends to be shocked*

steph
steph
5 years ago

I think Alba would be the best choice for Eurovision, Unique style and voice.

Miguel
Miguel
5 years ago

As all entertaining talent shows the most popular contestant won, not necessarily the best singer. Famous is very charismatic and likeable, but his voice is not that good and i always feel a bit underwhelmed with his lack of depth, particularly more in the final stages when all of them are very good. Alba is also very charismatic and she has sexy rock vibes. She is a natural performer and very versatile. Natalia is my personal favourite. I have to admit she is very theatrical, but that is her thing. She would be great at musicals and theatre. Her performances… Read more »

AVo
AVo
5 years ago

Fair winner based on his journey, but it was basically a tie between him and Alba. Also knowing he has no choice to go to Eurovision with the song assigned. My impressions about the Gala: Famous overacted a lot in his song, so did (as usual) Natalia. I don’t think musical theatre songs are the perfect choice for a winning performance. The other three contestants showed who they really were: Alba was superb with creep, Sabela did her best and Julia was outstanding. I’m sorry for her (Julia), she gave up and knew she would be the 5th. However, I… Read more »

Angie Cruz
Angie Cruz
5 years ago

For me its alba.. she sing with heart and what unique voice she have… here in the philippines we prefered with unique voice and sing with their own version…

Stian F
Stian F
5 years ago

Based on the 3 performances I by far preferred Alba and her Creep. She should have won. Though I have seen NO other performances by any of these contestants so I have no idea how they have done earlier. I only know there has been a lot of writing about Famous, but this final performance of his was underwhelming… Maybe because its a dull song for him?

Russian Fla-la-lag
Russian Fla-la-lag
5 years ago

Is Operacion Triunfo like the Sanremo Music Festival of Spain? I am not so aware of this as I don’t understand Spanish and did not watch the grand final. I thought Famous will instantly be selected to go to Tel Aviv with whatever song he’ll sing there and apparently that’s not the case.

James
James
5 years ago

Operation Triunfo or Star Academy is a 24/7 reality show created by Jon de Mol of Endemol, who is behind ppulae formats such as Big Brother and The Voice. The premise is that more than. A dozen or so “students” enroll into a BB-type academy that will serve as their home for several weeks where they will be trained by a group of industry professionals in the hopes of becoming future music superstars. Their every movement is captured by cameras, to be streamed online for viewers to see. Unlike Big Brother, they are allowed to go to the outside world… Read more »

James
James
5 years ago

Not sure why my comment disappeared but basically, Operation Triunfo is a reality show where contestants enroll into a Big Brother-style academy to hone their skills in singing, being trained by a group of music professionals. Every move is recorded by cameras and are streamed online. Every week, they take part in live performance shows, where one of them is eliminated from the competition and at least two people get nominated for the following week. The winner of every season don’t necessarily become Spain’s representative for Eurovision, as a separate show will be used next month to select an act… Read more »

simon
simon
5 years ago

Hi there. Operación Triunfo (OT) is a music academy and also a reality show and singing contest. The winner of the contest wins a money prize. Besides, this year, last year and some previous times from last decade, the Eurovision entry is selected among the contestants. It can be the winner or not. With Rosa López, it happened to be the winner, but con Beth and Ramón it did not. Now there is a selection of 17 songs, assigned to different contestants and duets to choose from.

Fast Food Music Lover
Fast Food Music Lover
5 years ago

Sure hope so! His vocals is amazing!!

Sabrina
Sabrina
5 years ago

Indeed! His parents got it right. By the way, they’re also very charismatic. It was a fun moment when Famous gave his mom the winner’s trophy and “check” and she celebrated with the audience.

Sabrina
Sabrina
5 years ago

It was a loooong, but pleasant night. I’m happy for Famous! In a show with OT’s format, unless there’s someone who’s clearly much better than the rest of the contestants, factors like charisma, life story, growth during the competition and personal relationships inside the academy count a lot. Since all the finalists are good singers, I guess having the whole package worked as an advantage for him. But Alba was right there, just 1% behind. Maybe if it wasn’t a superfinal with two girls and a guy, she would grab the trophy.

classic
classic
5 years ago

I know Famous has a lot of fans and a lot of people here on Wiwi comments have liked him as well, but honestly, I don’t like him at all. Many other OT contestants ultimately developed a somewhat original style or image whereas he didn’t. Being able to sing a long note isn’t really that amusing to all. My favourites were Miki and Alba (Favourite performances were Alba’s “La Llorona” and Miki’s “Una Lluna a l’aigua”), really sad that Miki didn’t even made it into final. But he has three songs for eurovision so I’ll hope one of them is… Read more »

Weißbrot
Weißbrot
5 years ago
Reply to  classic

but this show is primarily about singing, Miki can’t sing (at least not well).

classic
classic
5 years ago
Reply to  Weißbrot

I guess it’s a matter of taste, because to me, he can

James
James
5 years ago

Famous es famoso.

Congrats!

ESCFan2009
ESCFan2009
5 years ago

It was a great evening with a narrow result. We watched the show from Germany where it is 02:26 am now. Crazy Eurovision fans 😀 After the second round, I was not sure who would win, honestly. But I always said Alba and Famous are my favorites and now both Top 2 with only one per cent difference 🙂 I am happy 😉
And thank you Robyn, for covering it week for week.
Good Night now at half past two XD

Joe
Joe
5 years ago
Reply to  ESCFan2009

Germany is in the same time zone as Spain.

ESCFan2009
ESCFan2009
5 years ago
Reply to  Joe

You are right! 🙂 What I wanted to say: For people, who have to work early on the next day (because it it Thursday now), this is very late tbh. But in Spain it is normal to watch the evening shows from 22:00 to 01:00 am, whereas in Germany the shows start at 20:15 and end before midnight, when it is in the middle of the week. On a weekend you can stay up for the night, but in the week 02:26 is very late XD

Alex
Alex
5 years ago

No, thanks. Alba to Eurovision!

ImFromRomania
ImFromRomania
5 years ago