Bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst reflects on her unforgettable gender-bending Eurovision performance 10 years later
It’s A Sin actor Olly Alexander will represent England with his song “Dizzy.” In 1998, the contest named its first trans winner, Dana International.Dive into drag culture and get a mix of entertainment, politics, and LGBTQ+ gems with our newsletter.And this year marks the 10th anniversary of a particularly unforgettable queer champion: Bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst, representing Austria with her winning power ballad “Rise Like A Phoenix.”The success of “Rise Like A Phoenix” in the 2014 competition was a major shock for Austria, which hadn’t won the competition since 1966 (with Udo Jürgens’ “Merci, Chérie”), and for Wurst who was just 25 at the time and had yet to make an impression on the international pop scene.Out of drag, Conchita Wurst is known as Thomas Neuwirth (he/him), who was born in a small town in the Austrian countryside, where he says he always knew he was different and face homophobic prejudice from an early age.See the photos here.After placing second in the Austrian talent show Starmania in 2006 and short-lived stint in the boyband Jetzt Anders!, Neuwirth began to develop and perform as his drag persona, Conchita Wurst, choosing to keep his beard as “a statement to say that you can achieve anything, no matter who you are or how you look,” he told Reuters in 2014.Once Conchita was selected to represent Austria in Eurovision 2014, she was destined to make an impression.
Though the contest is known for its spectacle, she went for a more stripped-down performance—she was the first person to win without backing singers or dancers since 1970!—to emphasize her vocals, her gender-bending appearance, and the song’s message about overcoming adversity.A post shared by Conchita Wurst (@conchitawurst)Of course, her mere presence on the stage was sure to be divisive, especially at a time before Drag Race was a globally acclaimed franchise and when same-sex marriage was newly legalized in a number of Western European countries.Per a retrospective piece in The.
