The Dutch candidate for the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), Joost Klein, has officially been excluded from the competition. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced this on Saturday afternoon. The reason for this is police investigations in connection with an incident after Klein’s semi-final appearance on Thursday evening. According to the EBU, the complaint is about a woman from Klein’s production team.
This means that Klein is not allowed to compete in the grand finale show, which begins this Saturday at 9 p.m. The competition will now only be held with 25 instead of 26 songs.
The EBU further writes that the Malmö police are investigating a complaint from a female member of the production team. “We have a zero-tolerance policy towards inappropriate behavior at our event and are committed to providing a safe working environment for all competition staff. With this in mind, Joost Klein’s behavior towards a team member will be considered a breach of the competition rules.”
The EBU clarified “that, contrary to some media reports and speculation on social media, no other artists or delegation members were involved in this incident.” The reports were about Joost’s appearance with Israeli participant Eden Golan, among others, during which he pulled a Dutch flag over his head.
The police themselves confirm that they are investigating, but have not announced who they are targeting. A police spokeswoman said: “We have interviewed witnesses and taken further investigative measures.” The report was received on Friday.
The Dutch public broadcaster (NPO) regretted Klein’s disqualification on Saturday. “The NPO considers this a very drastic decision.” This is a disappointment for the millions of ESC fans in the Netherlands and other European countries. The course of events after the competition will be assessed in detail with everyone involved. “The incident is hardly worth mentioning,” commented Dutch TV commentator Cornald Maas. For Joost Klein and his team, the exclusion was “hell.” The TV channel Avrotros called the disqualification “disproportionate.”
Regardless of the Joost case, this year’s ESC will be overshadowed by protests against Israel because of the Gaza war. At several demonstrations, thousands of people called for the country to be excluded from the competition – including climate activist Greta Thunberg.
The 26-year-old Klein is also known in Germany. Last year he was in the music charts when, together with the Berlin rapper Ski Aggu, he transformed the song “Friesenjung” by Otto Waalkes into a techno version.