Bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst reflects on her unforgettable gender-bending Eurovision performance 10 years later

Conchita Wurst | Photo Credit: Getty Images

We hope you’ve been giving those vocal chords some rest because its time to start singing along with—and screaming about—the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, which kick off their semi-finals today in Malmö, Sweden.

The annual music competition pits original numbers from artists representing countries of the European Union against one another in a voted-on performance tournament, and has come to be known as the “Gay Olympics” thanks to its penchant for campy, flashy pop bombast, which regularly draws in a large LGBTQ+ viewership.

But Eurovision has long welcomed queer performers into the competition, too. For example, this year, Years & Years frontman and It’s A Sin actor Olly Alexander will represent England with his song “Dizzy.” In 1998,

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