{"id":40472,"date":"2026-05-13T08:39:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40472\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T08:39:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:39:31","slug":"eurovision-semi-final-backlash-as-fans-fume-over-act-most-robbed-entry-of-the-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40472\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision semi-final backlash as fans fume over act ‘most robbed entry of the decade’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest took place on Tuesday evening in Vienna (May 12)\"Rylan<\/p>\n

Rylan Clark and Angela Scanlon are part of the Eurovision presenting team for the UK(Image: BBC)<\/p>\n

Eurovision fans were left furious after one act failed to secure a place in the grand final.<\/p>\n

The first semi-final<\/a> of the song contest<\/a> – taking place in Vienna this year – took place on Tuesday (May 12), and audiences were captivated by Tamara \u017divkovi\u0107, who delivered the song Nova zora to represent Montenegro.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Montenegro was amongst the nations eliminated, alongside Estonia, Georgia and Portugal. San Marino, represented by Culture Club icon Boy George, also didn’t progress, reports the Liverpool Echo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Viewers watching the BBC<\/a> broadcast in the UK, where Graham Norton, Rylan Clark and Angela Scanlon are the presenting team, were far from pleased with the semi-final outcome. Many insisted Montenegro had been “robbed” following its performance.<\/p>\n

“Very sad for Montenegro,” one viewer posted on X, while another commented: “I’m sorry for Montenegro, they really deserved the final!”<\/p>\n

\"Eurovision<\/p>\n

Viewers thought Montenegro was ‘robbed'(Image: Screengrab)<\/p>\n

“THEY ROBBED MONTENEGRO,” another person declared on the platform, formerly known as Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“MONTENEGRO out NO ONE TALK TO ME,” expressed another spectator, as somebody else maintained they “should have gone through”.<\/p>\n

“Absolutely no words,” raged another fan. “Tamara and the Montenegro delegation did everything. There’s not a single thing they could’ve done better, the performance was perfect. Most robbed entry of the decade.”<\/p>\n

“Cancel the contest,” one viewer joked, while someone else questioned: “How did San Marino and Montenegro fail to get through?”<\/p>\n

\"Boy<\/p>\n

Boy George didn’t make it into the final<\/p>\n

Despite the disappointment of some eliminations, fans were delighted for the acts that progressed. “My favourites are in the final and I am very happy with that,” said one viewer.<\/p>\n

Ten countries secured their places in the final during the semi-final, including Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Sweden, Serbia, Greece and Israel. Lithuania, Poland and Moldova also advanced to the next round.<\/p>\n

As one of the Big Four nations, alongside Germany, France and Italy, the UK has been guaranteed an automatic place in the Eurovision Song Contest final.<\/p>\n

This year’s UK representative is electronic musician Look Mum No Computer, whose real name is Sam Battle, who will take to the stage to perform his track Eins, Zwei, Drei.<\/p>\n

The final of the Eurovision Song Contest is on on BBC<\/a> One on Saturday May 16 from 8pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest took place on Tuesday evening in Vienna (May 12) Rylan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[11004,20859,20863,20860],"class_list":{"0":"post-40472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-eurovision","10":"tag-eurovision-song-contest","11":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}