The unthinkable has happened.
Justin Timberlake has been out-performed and overshadowed.
The wildly successful hitmaker had a perfectly fine (and by fine we mean fantastic as always) outing at the grand finale of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, held tonight at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden. And while the contestants may have had the support of entire governments behind them, Timberlake also had his biggest fan with him in Sweden: Jessica Biel was spotted watching him rehearse on Friday.
But the annual competition, know for its over-the-top costumes, melodramatic (or kooky) performances, its politics and fierce patriotism from the participating nations, is about so much more than a fancy headliner.
Unfortunately this year, critics are decrying that the contest was about something other than music too.
Ukraine's Jamala was declared the winner Saturday for her original song "1944," which is about atrocities committed by Stalin. (So JT's latest hit, "Can't Stop the Feeling," was considerably lighter—albeit most welcome—fare.)
Jamala beat out Dami Im of Australia's "Sound Of Silence" for the title, which came as a surprise to the announcers heard on BBC One, and coming in third was Russia, the agony of defeat all over "You Are the Only One" singer Sergey Lazarev's face.
Meanwhile, this marked the first year that the Eurovision Song Contest—competing countries are members of the European Broadcasting Zone, plus Australia—was televised in the United States; but even without the extra visibility, surely the controversy over Ukraine's win would have raged anyway, with many critics suggesting that the judges' choice was entirely political and had nothing to do with music.
In 2015 I watched #Eurovision while in hospital with kidney stones. This years winner is almost as painful to watch pic.twitter.com/6E9ruX9fRH
— Paul Brownlee (@PaulBMedia) May 14, 2016
Did you catch any of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest? Was Australia robbed? What do you think?!?