Scandal erupts: Jerry Heil accuses the organizers of the Eurovision 2026 national selection of not showing her performance in full

8 February 15:09

Performer Jerry Heil (Yana Shemaeva) accuses the organizers of the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 of not showing her performance in full on air, writes "Komersant Ukrainian".

“It is a pity that after so many requests during rehearsals and before the performance on television, they decided not to show Yoann Bourgeois’ idea, which was the essence of our performance… My team and I cannot explain this to ourselves… It’s a shame that Ukraine and, importantly, the part of the world that watches the national selection, were unable to see the director’s main idea. We were so impressed by how a foreigner felt our reality. The goal of the performance was to tell the world: wake up, because we are on the verge of an apocalypse!” the singer wrote on Instagram.

In turn, the creative producer of this year’s national selection, who is responsible for the visual and stage content of the show, Herman Nenov, stated on his Instagram that: “This is what the gap between creative intent and reality looks like. And the production team, which simply broadcasts it, is not to blame for this. The lack of television experience of the director of the show, who implemented the idea of another director and did not want to listen to advice from the entire project team, led to these consequences.”

He also emphasized that the entire filming of this year’s project was of a high standard and almost all of the artists’ technical solutions were implemented, although there were some shortcomings.

Nenov noted that all teams were warned about all technical issues and possible changes, including Jerry Heil’s team.

According to the results of the final of the national selection for Eurovision 2026, which took place on Saturday, February 7, LELÉKA won with the song Ridnym. Jerry Heil took third place.

This was Jerry Heil’s fourth time participating in the national selection for Eurovision (previously in 2020, 2023, and 2024). Last time, she and Alyona Alyona won the national selection and represented Ukraine at Eurovision 2024 in Sweden, where they took third place with the song Teresa & Maria.

Анна Ткаченко
Editor

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