Victoria will represent Bulgaria at Eurovision 2021 with the song “Growing Up Is Getting Old”.
Victoria Georgieva was originally due to sing “Tears Getting Sober” at Eurovision 2020. However, the contest was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But, just like several other countries, Bulgaria opted to stick with its singer for Eurovision 2021. “Growing Up Is Getting Old” was internally selected. Six songs were up for consideration, her single “Ugly Cry” and all the tracks from her EP a little dramatic.
We’ve compiled 10 facts about Bulgaria’s Victoria. Let’s do this!
Bulgaria at Eurovision 2021: Facts about Victoria
1. She’s got the X Factor
Victoria kickstarted her career after participating in season four of X Factor Bulgaria in 2015, reaching the live finals and finishing in sixth place. She participated alongside another future Bulgarian Eurovision star — Kristian Kostov. He finished in second place in both X Factor and Eurovision 2017.
2. She fights for her dream
Before her appearance on season four of X Factor, Victoria had actually already auditioned for the first three seasons of the show. Alas, Victoria never made it past the judges and onto TV. But she made it fourth time lucky. This is a lesson to all of us to never give up on our dreams, no matter how many times we get knocked back!
3. She’s an animal lover
Victoria is passionate about animals. In an interview last year, she told wiwibloggs that she had several dogs of her own. “All my dogs have been adopted and I love them so much! Animal adoption is a cause really close to my heart, and I want to raise awareness in Bulgaria about the amazing people who give their time to help homeless dogs and cats find their new home.” In addition to her canine friends, Victoria revealed that she also had two rabbits and one parrot — “I love animals so much. Sometimes even more than music”. Sadly, one of her rabbits has since passed away. She’s also been a vegetarian for the past five or six years — “I don’t eat my friends”.
4. She has over 15 tattoos.
That’s right, and this includes one full sleeve and another half sleeve. Victoria loves tattoos and hopes to get more. One of the most recent additions to her collection is a tattoo dedicated to her Eurovision 2021 entry. If features a tearful woman drawn in the style of a graphic novel alongside the lyrics “don’t get it… there’s an ocean of emotions that I’m carrying inside”.
5. Here are a few of her favourite things
In a 2020 Q&A session, Victoria revealed that Friends is her favourite TV show, and she even knows famous lines from the programme off by heart, such as “Joey doesn’t share food!”. She revealed more in a recent Instagram Q&A. Her favourite book is The Little Prince, her favourite song at the moment is “Me In 20 Years” by Moses and she also loves The Vampire Diaries.
6. Her debut EP came out earlier this year
Victoria released her debut EP a little dramatic in February. It contained five new tracks, including “Growing Up Is Getting Old”. However, all the tracks were in the mix for Eurovision. “Every young artist dreams about their first album,” VICTORIA says. “I am proud I will finally be able to share my EP with the world. The title a little dramatic best describes the overall arc of the songs on the album. I think I grew a lot in 2020, which was quite a dramatic year.” She intends to release a part two to the EP later in 2021.
7. She has other singles too
She might have only just released her first EP, but Victoria already had an impressive repetoire. Her first single in English was “I Wanna Know”. This was followed by her Eurovision 2020 effort “Tears Getting Sober”. She released two more singles in 2020 — “alright” and “Ugly Cry”. The latter was also in consideration for Eurovision 2021, alongside the tracks on her EP.
8. She’s a Billie Eilish fan
Victoria credits Billie Eilish as one of her musical inspirations and even had the chance to meet her. Often Victoria is compared to Billie: “Billie Eilish is a wonderful artist, and something I would not allow myself is to be in the shadow of such a worldwide popular artist. People comparing my style to hers is probably good because it means that I am doing something right for me.” However, speaking to our William, she stresses that she’s not trying to be Billie Eilish — “I don’t think an artist who wants to be something big wants to be someone else. I just like her”.
9. But Hannah Montanna was her first inspiration
It might seem like she’s been with us forever, but Billie Eilish is only a relatively new addition to the music world. So, who was Victoria’s inspiration growing up? In an Instagram Q&A session, the Bulgarian reveals that it was actually Hannah Montana — the fictional alter ego of Miley Cyrus. Fans will recall that Hannah was a popstar by night and a regular school girl by night. Victoria writes: “When I was 11 years old I got really inspired by the tv series Hannah Montana. I wanted to be like her and that’s why I started taking singing lessons”.
10. She gave a Ted Talk
Victoria was selected from over 500 candidates to perform at a TEDx event, the Melboss Open Music Forum in Madrid, Spain. She delivered a talk on her would-have-been journey to Rotterdam, and the audience included producer and sound engineer Rafa Sardina, who has 13 Grammys under his belt.
What do you think of Victoria? Are you excited to see her at Eurovision 2021? Let us know in the comments.
Amazing girl.
So happy to see so many of the participants dont eat animal. Viktoria is joining Benny Cristo, Montaigne and Vaidotas Valiukevicius from The Roop. I hope theres some more as we get to know the rest.
I was surprised to see today how little views Growing Up Is Getting Old has on YouTube. Of all the 39 official videos on the Eurovision channel, Bulgaria is 38th, behind only Estonia. Even North Macedonia and Georgia have more views than Bulgaria. Spotify streams of the song appear relatively low too, and have only just overtaken Victoria’s Ugly Cry. Quite surprising for a supposed fan favourite that’s Top 5 with the bookies.
Bulgaria doesn’t deserve that few views. I can not understand why it has so few views 🙁
I agree! I’m really quite surprised. It’s a beautiful song, with thoughtful, poignant lyrics.
I’m sure juries will rate it highly, but as Victoria says, she also wants to win people’s hearts, so hopefully the team can get her out there, doing more guest spots and interviews.
Only those who win heart of the public will have some smaaaaaall chance to break through on the international market (which is Victoria’s and some other singers from this esc year goal). Final result and jury result is not and should not be their concern. Only televoting should be their focus for what they want to achive in the future
The song didnt have a big impact since the beginning, out of the songs she released it always had the less views and streams. Imaginary Friend had was the biggest ” hit ”
They relying on stage presence, I think we will see something good.
Bulgaria is still on the waves of the last year entry, same as Lithuania and Iceland, but as all 3 entries are much worse than their previous year entries, you should not be surprised if they end up quite low on the ranking list in May. Same happened with Greece, Cyprus and Malta in 2019, when ESC fans who write posts here kept them high in rankings (as bookies) and then got shocked when the general public didn’t view those songs same as them. You can be sure that Bulgaria will not rank super high in the final
Well, Lithuania is awesome and number 1 to me.
Perhaps, but when you look at the views that those three countries had for the 2020 entries, tears getting sober Wasn’t really that popular. At the most current count it has only reached 3.1 million views, which is still a lot, but Iceland and Lithuania’s 2020 entries reached 8.2 and almost 10,000,000 views respectfully on the Eurovision channel! It is true that Bulgaria, Iceland, and Lithuania have Lower views for their 2021 entries on the Eurovision channel, but Lithuania is part of the 1,000,000+ View club, While Bulgaria and Iceland have not made it there yet. And then you got… Read more »
The song was reuploaded like 4 times on YouTube and was the last one of the five she uploaded from her EP so that’s probably why. But with the one on the esc page and her own, she does have more
fact 11. she is the reincarnation of jesus christ, buddha, marilyn monroe, and the ancient chinese emperor qin shi huang
I was so mad that Imaginary Friend didnt win, but Growing up is getting old completely stole my heart.