Austria wins third Eurovision crown with JJ's song Wasted Love

By John Revill

BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) -Austria won the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Swiss host city Basel on Saturday, in the country's first victory since bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst won in 2014.

Operatic singer JJ won ahead of Israel's Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the October 7 attacks, who sang "New Day Will Rise" in the world's biggest music competition, which was watched by more than 160 million people across the world.

The win was Austria's third in the competition, following Conchita's success and Udo Juergens' victory in 1966.

JJ, 24, a countertenor opera singer from Vienna, combined elements of opera, techno and soprano heights in his song Wasted Love, winning the hearts of the professional juries and telephone voters.

"This is absolutely insane. My dreams came true," said the singer, whose real name is Johannes Pietsch. "It's out of this world."

Going into the final, the Filipino-Austrian was second favourite behind Swedish comedy trio KAJ, whose song extolling the joy of saunas had been the hot favourite with bookmakers before finishing fourth.

Switzerland, hosting after Swiss rapper and singer Nemo won last year's contest in Malmo, Sweden, finished 10th.

JJ said he wanted to give listeners an insight into his deepest thoughts when he wrote the song, and was happy it had resonated with so many fans.

"There's no wasted love. Love is never wasted. There's so much love that we can spread around, and we should use love as the strongest force on planet Earth," he added.

His success was applauded by Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker, who said JJ was writing musical history.

"Dear JJ, you have moved Europe with your voice and sung Austria into the spotlight," Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said on X.

JJ told reporters he would like next year's event to be hosted in his hometown of Vienna, which hosted the 2015 final, adding he would like to be a TV host for the event.

Meinl-Reisinger and others joked about the significant cost of holding the event at a time when the government is planning to cut spending by billions of euros a year to rein in the budget deficit.

"Now we're going to have to take a look at our budget," she wrote on X. "But isn't it fantastic?"

Fans travelled from across Europe and beyond to Basel, with 100,000 people attending Eurovision events in the city, including the final.

Hermann Heyn travelled from Chile for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

"We came from really, really far away for this," he told Reuters. "We are not even competing, but we needed to be here."

Eurovision, which stresses its political neutrality, faced controversy again this year due to the war in Gaza.

Israel's entrant, Raphael, was at the Nova music festival during the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

The singer was the most popular among the general public to finish behind Austria, which was the most popular contestant among the juries.

Pro-Palestinian groups urged the European Broadcasting Union to exclude Israel over Gaza, where more than 50,000 people have been killed in the ensuing offensive by Israel, according to local health officials.

Around 200 protesters mounted a demonstration in Basel on Saturday evening, while two protesters attempted to get on to the stage during Raphael's performance but were halted by security officials. Nobody was injured.

Spanish public broadcaster RTVE also showed a message before the start of the Eurovision show saying "When human rights are at stake, silence is not an option. Peace and Justice for Palestine".

(Reporting by John Revill, Johnny Cotton, Cecile Mantovani, Swantje Stein, Max Schwarz and Denis Balibouse; Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and Ana Rios Cantero in Madrid; Editing by Deepa Babington, Mark Potter and Sandra Maler)