{"id":14067,"date":"2026-05-04T19:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/14067\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:31:13","slug":"%f0%9f%87%a7%f0%9f%87%aa-belgium-essyla-eurovision-has-been-a-dream-since-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/14067\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddea Belgium: Essyla &#8211; &#8220;Eurovision has been a dream since childhood&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We had the opportunity to catch up with Essyla, who is representing Belgium at Eurovision 2026, after her first rehearsal.<\/p>\n<p>Following her first rehearsal in Vienna, we spoke with Essyla, who will represent Belgium with \u201cDancing on the Ice\u201d. She discussed the ideas behind her staging, her lifelong connection to Eurovision and her opinions on C\u00e9line Dion\u2019s new song.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch the full interview with Essyla here:<\/p>\n<p>We thank Essyla for her time and wish her best of luck at Eurovision 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Essyla will represent Belgium with \u201cDancing on the Ice\u201d. She will perform in slot 11 in the first semi-final on May 12.<\/p>\n<p>Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest+<\/p>\n<p>Belgium was one of the seven nations who participated in the first edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. To date, the country has won the contest only once in 1986. Sandra Kim won the contest with the song \u201cJ\u2019aime la vie\u201d. Her victory was not without controversy when it emerged that Sandra was just 13 years old, two years younger than the age restriction at the time. In the late 00s, Belgium struggled in the contest, failing to reach the final annually from 2005 until 2010, when Tom Dice finished 6th in the final with 143 points. Belgium has finished last at the contest eight times, including two sets of nul points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We had the opportunity to catch up with Essyla, who is representing Belgium at Eurovision 2026, after her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,2221,1365],"class_list":{"0":"post-14067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-essyla","10":"tag-headline"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116517974029121220","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}