This morning, the Croatian delegation have released a full statement about the plagiarism claims that have been made against their entry “Crazy” by Franka. The words you see below are published in full with no editorial license taken. Branimir Mihaljevic is the composer of “Crazy”.
Read the statement in full below
Following the speculations about the song “Crazy” and plagiarism allegations, I feel obliged to clarify the situation. The whole song is the product of our work only, and as I have previously mentioned, I’ve worked on the production of the song “Crazy” together with my colleague Denis Mevlja, also known as Denzel Beats or Denz. For the past two days we have been working intensively to find out how this situation emerged and how it all happened. Finally we found out that Denis Mevlja, who makes and sells beats online for a living, uploaded a wrong file on the online store site by mistake, uploading the stems for our Eurovision song “Crazy” under another name, evidently without my approval as a co-writer. It is all made very clear in the photo document presented by Guez which we are sending in the attachment. The song “Crazy” was made exclusively and entirely for the Eurovision song contest and this situation never should’ve happened.
It is unquestionable that Guez bought the song “Blame me” with a very restricted license, but I must also point out that the Romanian musician has violated two articles regarding the purchase of the instrumental track from Denzel Beats, taking actions which he had no right to take according to the contract. Finally, I want to thank HRT for understanding and for your support.
Branimir Mihaljevic
I can’t express how sorry I am that Franka became a victim of my negligence and clumsiness in an event she didn’t know about and understandably, she was completely shocked. We’ve been working all together on this song for months and one moment of my ignorance impacted all the good work we’ve done, and all the positive energy around our song. I know that Franka will still give it her all on that Eurovision stage, because I felt it since the first day we started working on the song.
Denis Mevlja
What happens now?
ESCXTRA have reached out to HRT for further comment about possible consequences for their entry at Eurovision this year and whether they have spoken to the EBU in regards to this case.
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