Drag queen hails Eurovision win as victory for tolerance

Wurst, sporting high heels, butterfly eyelashes and a full beard, won the competition, defeating the Netherlands’ modern country duo The Common Linnets with Sweden’s Sanna Nielsen finishing third with the pop song “Undo”.

At a news conference shortly after her win, 25-year-old Wurst said she could not believe she had won.

“Actually, I have to say, as some of you may have seen it I was crying the whole time and suddenly there came this gold shower, this flitter and I said to my agent Rene (Berto) ‘say it – did I win?’ and he said ‘yes you did’ and I said…,” Wurst said.

“For me, my dream came true,” Wurst, whose birth name is Tom Neuwirth, said.

“But for our society, it just showed me that there are people out there who want to go into the future and go on, you know, not stepping back or thinking in the past.”

Wurst received the biggest cheers from the audience but also stirred controversy in some countries.

Online petitions were started in Belarus, Armenia and Russia – whose government passed a law last year banning “gay propaganda” among minors – to have Wurst removed or edited out of broadcasts in their countries.

“This Eurovision family is a family I always wanted to join because this project is based on tolerance, acceptance and love and so it really felt like coming home actually and I know that there is a world beside the Eurovision Song Contest but believe that also the people outside the Eurovision think, hopefully, the way I do,” Wurst said.

It was Austria’s first victory since 1966. The contest has been held every year since 1956.