The rumours are true. French broadcaster France 2 has now confirmed that singer-songwriter Tom Leeb will represent France at Eurovision 2020. The upcoming singer has been internally selected by the broadcaster.
Tom was the subject of earlier speculation from French media. Now broadcaster France 2 has confirmed that he will indeed be France’s man in Rotterdam this May via Instagram.
The post features an image of the very photogenic singer, along with the following caption: “We are proud to announce that @tomleeb will defend our colours at the next Eurovision broadcast on May 16th on @France2!”
Tom shared his excitement, saying, “The Eurovision Song Contest is an iconic and unifying event; I am so proud to be representing France and I can’t wait to live this experience with you all.”
French media report that Tom’s song for Rotterdam will be a “universal” song that will “bring together” international audiences. The broadcaster has not confirmed the language of the song.
It is expected that Tom’s song for Eurovision will be released in coming weeks. France 2 promises a special event to present the song.
This is the first internal selection for France since 2017. The broadcaster previously used the national final Destination Eurovision but explained that this time they wanted to concentrate on finding the right song.
France 2 selected the song for Eurovision first, from over 100 submissions. With the song found, the broadcaster then selected Tom as the right person to perform it in Rotterdam. Or as new Head of Delegation Alexandra Redde-Amiel explained, “We think that the ideal proposal corresponds to a match between a song for which we had a huge crush and an artist to embody it.”
Who is Tom Leeb? Meet France’s Eurovision 2020 singer
Tom Leeb is a singer-songwriter from Paris. He comes from a notable family of artists. His father is the well-known French comedian Michel Leeb and Tom’s sister Fanny is an established singer and star of The Voice 2013.
Tom is a man of many talents, having worked as is a singer, actor and also a comedian. He spent five years in New York, studying theatre, cinema, dance and singing.
He previously performed alongside his father in a theatrical adaption of Mrs Doubtfire. Tom has also made appearances on French television and has acted in films alongside established stars such as Jean Reno.
He also performs as a comedy duo with fellow funnyman Kevin Levy. As Kevin & Tom, the pair have a popular YouTube channel, including skits and songs. The videos are frequently very cheeky. One of his most recent is entitled, “How to hold an orgasm?”.
But lately, Tom has been focusing on his music. He has played support gig for international stars such as Sting and Tom Jones. His music inspirations are other male singer-songwriters, such as Ben Howard, Matt Corby Bon Iver and John Mayer — all English-language performers.
In 2018 he debuted with a self-titled EP, and last year he released his album Recollection. Both recordings were English language and showcased Tom as a contemporary singer-songwriter. A version of Tom’s single “Are We Too Late” has clocked up over 25 million views on the YouTube audio clip.
What do you think? Are we looking at a potential Eurovision winner? Sound off below!
The son of a former humorist. What a joke.
not at all, france have a dull lifeless turd, not even gonna bother listening to his entry, don’t want to fall asleep lets say
france has given up on eurovision, sending this fake musician, last place of this year with 0 points hopefully
We talk again when you do this live on the radio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OtRYl701Vc
With a mainly female and gay fan base at Eurovision. The chances for a male victory are just bigger right?
Based on the videoclip I say it’s nice and pleasant but nothing that stands out. We have songs like this everywhere, it’s to basic and MOR.
But he has the voice so hopefully his ESC entry is something better..
It’s not the song for the contest (it will be reveal later….)
Handsome, but his songs are boring as f*ck
F*ck is not boring usually
Why are people complaining that at the moment there are more male singers than female singers? I bet if it was the other way around the ESC fandom wouldn’t care. Gender shouldn’t matter. Its a song contest where all are welcome.
Liking Tom’s sound. Very interested to see what he brings to the competition. Good luck to him!
I don’t really have much problems with male overload whatsoever, but if we have to talk about it, we never once had a top 3 consisting of entirely females, EVER, since the re-introduction of juries (the closest being 2016, would happen if Sergey placed lower than Poli). The two last instances of it happening were 2002 and 2007 (Verka is a woman after all).
Verka is man so…
2020, Year of the solo male.
No wide shots this year, please
Wide shots were pretty interesting, i could saw faces of people
the song better be worth of everyone’s top 10 bc if they scrapped destination eurovision for sumthin meh i’ll riot
Such a strong and classy NF.
france is bottom of my ranking with this bore
He’s extremely good looking (I may had spent too much time checking his Instagram), has a gorgeous tone, there are Youtube videos showing he can really sing… so the question mark for me is if his song will have more personality than his normal music, which is cozy, pleasant but nothing more than that. I hope at least most of the song is in French.
France! No national selection because of this artist? Or what are the reasons?
They reported that Destination Eurovision won’t take place due to the low audiences they had the last 2 years and they wanted to have more control about the songs they are sending, and maybe this is a good choice, but as soon as the song is released, we will know if this was a better option than a national final
I’m calling it, his songs will be full 100% with english lyrics : https://twitter.com/fabrandanne/status/1217141099992702977?s=19 Some more informations : The song is “in work in progress” and will be released “later”, she said. Besides, it doesn’t have a title yet. It will in any case be a “universal” song: “We fell in love with a song, it was obvious, something happens when we listen to it,” said Alexandra Redde-Amiel. She also praised the “unique, charismatic and authentic grain of voice” of the 30-year-old actor, son of humorist Michel Leeb. Tom Leeb succeeds Bilal Hassani, who arrived last year in 16th place… Read more »
Please please no, let it least be half French!
Yeah maybe, but Without Germany lol
Noah – hahaha i always love germany in the contest, they dont care mutch about results
Maybe at least 70% French lyrics.
DE was a great NF so I was always going to be a bit sad about France going internal. But he seems like a great pick- and he can sing live well. I just hope they write a bilingual song from the get go rather than clumsily adding French to an English penned song (am assuming France would not submit a fully English song at all), unless he just sings in French.
he can sing like trash, all of his work are snoozes, also in english is a insult for a country like france, who Always should sing in own language, shame we miss out on french language because of this worm
Is there any guess for time the Uk’s representative will be announced- or any rumours? BBC have been flying under the radar so far
A Lemar rumour is floating around. He had a lot of chart success worldwide in the mid 00s
Oh ok thanks
Hopefully we won’t be disappointed
I’ll riot if it’s not Freya Ridings
I read something about Fleur East earlier…
If they don’t mess up the staging like they always seem to do recently, he can be THE artist to take France to the top 5 again. I’m excited for this, but we need to hear his song first.
One thing’s for sure: we know who will win Eurovision’s Next Top Model. I’ll wait for the song to judge his ESC chances, in the meantime this guy can give me 12 points whenever he wants.
last place of this year, no need to wait for the song
Last place will be Belarus or Germany, diaspora will save France, at the end of the day, he is not Twin Twin ….
Long post incoming (sorry but this article is so incomplete): the singer was chosen internally like the song, currently Tom is on studio working on it. They felt in love with the song. We don’t know the genre and the language(s) neither writers or composers. The song hasn’t be revealed to anyone. They said they have a precise idea for the staging for Rotterdam. They will create « a special occasion » when he will reveal his song. I’m waiting for the song!
Where do you learn all these information? I didn’t see any interview of a member from the french delegation?
Twitter-> Thread (it’s in French). I hope the link will work https://mobile.twitter.com/fabrandanne/status/1217134688344641536
Oh thanks I searched it everywhere. Thank you, I’m french moi aussi
I was hoping on a song in French, but judging by his repertoire, we’re not going to get that sadly
From France, you will always have a major part of the song with French lyrics (or a local language though). It’s like that. Don’t panic !
More informations if you want : The song that Tom Leeb will perform has been selected internally, by a committee within France Télévisions from among a hundred models received. The singer is working on her in the studio. #Eurovision The choice was made, according to @amielalex, towards a “universal” song, capable of “bringing together” audiences internationally. “We fell in love with a song, it was obvious, something happens when we listen to it.” @amielalex: “It’s complicated to find 18 good songs [for # Eurovision]. We chose to focus on a title and give it all our energy. ” For the… Read more »
I miss destination Eurovision in France. Yes he probably will be an average in the middle ranking. Just judging on his sound.
Yeah yeah FIRE!!
I don’t know if he will win in Rotterdam but he is already the winner of Eurovision Next Top Male Model
france doesn’t even come close to winning, lol a 0 points would be more deserving
At least we have the esc 2020 mister.
It’s sad for Destination Eurovision which was such an original national final for our country with refreshing figures and modern songs but anyway we need to go on and maybe this is a better option with him. Anyway I wish him good luck, may be he able to bring us the result we are waiting for since Amir in 2016 now here in France, and why not a brand new return of DE in 2021 in case of success! Rotterdam, here we come !!!!
Listened to his music and felt like falling asleep. I hope France don’t go back downhill again!
And the other worrying thing is that they wrote the song specifically for Eurovision. Eeek!
Ecology song incoming?
He will definitely attract a lot of attention by his look already, let’s hope his song will be great as well.
Bon choix, France!!
Btw, woow, this year we have a lot of male singers, don’t we?Arilena, Victoria and the girl from Hooverphonic are the only female singers so far.
It’s a song contest for heaven’s sake woman. His looks are irrelavent! Strewth!
Bc last year’s top 5 were all male
Given the male domination of 2019, it’s not surprising that many internally selected artists would be men. But Stefania Liberakakis is almost certainly ERT’s pick for Greece at this point. Moreover, it seems like SVT is pushing a female winner for MelFest in 2020 given the lineup, and the lineup of Beovizja suggests a woman or girl group will likely win there, although this kind of speculation is admittedly rash with songs yet to be released. In the Baltics, Samanta and Madara are building up hype in Latvia, and SHIRA has a chance in Estonia, and Aiste, Monique and Monika… Read more »
Slovenia as well (Gaja, Lina or Klara)
It’s frustrating that every time a discussion of representation comes up (be it for women, people of color, the LGBT+ community), it always turns into the argument of “it’s a SONG contest, not an IMAGE contest.” But you know something? The common goal of Eurovision is to put out a representation of local cultures coming together through the common theme of music. Europe is diverse, and the acts ought to reflect that. The reason it’s great to see representation for different groups of people on stage is that it’s NOT just a marketing tool; it’s actively trying to live up… Read more »
Amazing a proper artist with amazing vocals and great looks. All we need is a good song, which he will deliver 100%.
He will end up in top 15 for sure.
The big five (AND the Netherlands) will all be good this year I think.
Don’t jinx it before we know what’s up with the other two. I’d love you to be right.
I think if the UK does end up sending Fleur East (like it’s speculated) with a good song, that could e a recipe for success.
She very obliquely responded to someone mentioning she should do Eurovision on Twitter so who’s to say
She’s a one hit wonder but her hit was huge and she has a lot of charisma on stage. I think Lucie Jones managing to get the lead role in Waitress, one of the biggest West End shows at the moment since July of last year, showed other singers that a middling to good result at ESC can help your career in the long run.
Lucie already had many theatre credits before and after the contest, so I’m not sure the two are connected.
Same deal with Jade Ewen (although perhaps working with Andrew Lloyd-Weber is not a bad thing for a potential career in musical theatre).