Becky Hill has shut down rumours that she’ll be representing the UK at Eurovision 2025.
The 69th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Basel, Switzerland, with the final taking place in May 2025. This comes after Nemo clinched victory for Switzerland at Eurovision 2024 with their track ‘The Code’. It marked the nation’s first win since 1988, as well as the first-ever non-binary winner of Eurovision.
Now, ahead of next year’s instalment, the BBC is searching for the next act who will represent the UK, and has enlisted the help of Sam Ryder’s manager David May to scout for talent.
No name has currently been announced, but there’s recently been speculation that Hill was in the running after a Eurovision fan news Instagram account shared a post calling her a “possible UK representative”.
The pop singer promptly dismissed the claims, however, commenting: “hahaha who told you this? it’s bollocks i’m afraid, i’m not doing eurovision x”
She then went on to share the post to her Instagram story, writing: “this is bollocks btw, I’ve been asked before and my answer hasn’t changed, it’s a resounding no x”
Earlier this year, former Years & Years singer Olly Alexander performed the song ‘Dizzy’ at the competition and finished 18th out of 25 countries. He earned just 46 points from the jury, but none from the voting public.
Mae Muller’s finished second from last in 2023 after performing her track ‘I Wrote A Song’ last year, and before then, the UK also scored nul points in 2021, and finished in last place in 2019.
Prior to that, in 2022 Ryder pulled the most impressive results in recent memory for the UK – coming in second place, just behind Ukraine. He then went on to perform at the final of the 2023 edition, and was joined on stage by Queen drummer Roger Taylor.
Eurovision 2024 broke global viewing figures despite protests over the inclusion of Israel at this year’s event amid the war in Gaza. According to figures from the EBU, 163 million viewers tuned into the three live events including the Grand Final.
Israel’s inclusion prompted boycott calls from the LGBT+ community towards Olly Alexander, and over 1,000 Swedish artists also called for Israel to be banned this year – including Robyn, Fever Ray, and First Aid Kit – and more. Over 1,400 Finnish music industry professionals signed a petition to ban the country from taking part in the contest as well.
Israel was ultimately allowed to compete, and due to a political neutrality clause, the EBU announced they reserved the right to remove Palestinian flags and symbols. They would later go on to censor Irish contestant Bambie Thug for wearing the word ‘ceasefire’ and ‘freedom for Palestine’ as a hidden message on their costume.
Additionally, controversy this year also came as organisers disqualified the Netherlands’ entry Joost Klein just hours before the contest.
In other Becky Hill news, her second studio album ‘Believe Me Now?’ was released earlier this year, and included the powerful single ‘True Colours’ featuring Self Esteem.
Speaking to NME about ‘Believe Me Now?’ earlier this year, Hill said: “I want to move into a space that says ‘global artist’ and not ‘happy accident’. To come halfway across the world and have people love my music, it makes me feel like none of this has been delusional.”
She continued: “I feel like I’ve finally shed the ‘girl next door’ image as well. I was desperately trying to hang on to that because I didn’t want anyone to think I was too special or up my own ass.
“I didn’t want people asking, ‘Who the fuck is Becky Hill?’ but I’ve become this person that knows exactly who she is. I don’t need to downplay myself or my abilities because I finally believe in myself. You can hear that on this record.”
