At the ACUM Awards ceremony on Wednesday evening, TOY composer Doron Medalie has responded to the criticism aimed at him for comments he made a few days ago. In these comments, he claimed that he was “the bigger winner” of Eurovision 2018 and that Netta was lucky to find herself “in the situation”. Now, Doron has apologised to Netta.
“I beg your pardon”
According to the report of the event by ynet.co.il, Doron apologised to Netta explaining that the way he portrayed himself in the initial interview made it easy for reporters to take his comments out of context:
I know that you do not want me to apologize to you, but I beg your pardon for this whole thing.
“I was singing something that has nothing of me”
Netta herself has also responded to the situation:
I’m not used to standing up and talking, but at these moments I really like improvising. As always, I’ll talk from the heart, and I thought to teach everyone a lesson I learned on this journey.
In reference to comments the 2018 Eurovision winner previously made about the “chicken noises” being her own idea, Netta goes on to talk about the collaborative effort between her and Doron:
When we won Rising Star, I realised that I could do something very good for people. There was a man who had dreamed of winning the Eurovision Song Contest for ten years, and we aimed to write a song. Then came the realisation that you were singing in front of 200 million people. I thought to myself: ‘If I sing something that has nothing of me, I will not be able to win with it.’ We went on a pretty crazy journey of openness and worked together on TOY. That’s how you win, when you break down the borders and walls.
Indeed, the demo version of TOY leaked shortly after Netta’s victory in Lisbon.
Netta became Israel’s fourth winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, drawing the nation level on wins with The Netherlands. TOY scored a grand total of 529 points in the Final. It recently became the most watched video on the Official YouTube channel for the Eurovision Song Contest, and you can add to the ever-growing total by watching the clip (again!) below!
What are your thoughts on the latest developments in this story? Let us know @ESCXTRA!