Austria has won the 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. The country's 24-year-old entrant — Johannes Pietsch, known as JJ — won the total cumulative votes from the public and judges with his emotional song "Wasted Love," walking away with 436 points. More from Variety Eurovision Song Contest 2025 Livestream: How to Watch the Three-Day Music Event Live Online Eurovision: U.K. Picks Girl Group Remember Monday for 2025 Contest With 'What The Hell Just Happened?' Eurovision Introduces Official Code of Conduct for First Time to 'Protect' Artists, Competition: 'We Show How the World Could Be, Rather Than How It Necessarily Is' (EXCLUSIVE) Last year's winner, nonbinary Swiss singer Nemo, was also 24 when they won. Accepting his trophy after the four-hour show, the queer countertenor singer repeatedly thanked Europe for "making my dreams come true." Waving the glass trophy, JJ shared with the crowd, "Love is the strongest force in the world. Let's spread more love." Austria won the 2025 contest by narrowly tipping over Israel, which finished in second place with 357 points and was represented by Yuval Raphael and her ballad "New Day Will Rise." The singer looked like the strongest candidate to win, as public votes were being announced until the last minute. Both Switzerland and the UK got zero public votes. This was the UK's second year in a row with zero points from the public, finishing at 19th place with 88 votes from the judges — just one below Olly Alexander last year. The UK was represented by female trio Remember Monday with their song "What the Hell Just Happened?" this year. Estonian entry Tommy Cash came in third with 356 points, followed by Swedish KAJ, the first Finnish act to represent Sweden at the Eurovision, with 321 points, and Italy's Lucio Corsi with 256 points. This year's contest brought Eurovision back to the country where it first began: Switzerland. The event took place in St. Jakobshalle Arena in Basel. The show was hosted by German-Swiss comedian Hazel Brugger, Swiss presenter and Switzerland's 1991 Eurovision participant Sandra Studer and Swiss-Italian TV personality Michelle Hunziker. 26 countries performed at this year's grand finale, after 11 of the original 37 countries participating were knocked out in the semi-finals. The contest was hosted in Switzerland 36 years after it last hosted the program, when Celine Dion famously won in 1988 as the Swiss entrant. Reported to be in the city by multiple news outlets, including the BBC, many were confident Dion would make a surprise guest appearance, but no such performance took place. Instead, event co-host Sandra Studer sang a rendition of her entry song from the 1991 contest, "Canzone Per Te", and the arena, lit in hot pink lights, sang along to ABBA's "Waterloo" before the last contestants in the grand finale performed. The show was opened by an electric performance of the song "Code" by last year's winner, Swiss singer Nemo. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival Sign up forVariety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram.
