Conchita Wurst

Biography

Thomas Neuwirth (born 6 November 1988) is an Austrian singer, actor, media personality and drag queen who is known for his stage persona Conchita Wurst, nicknamed "the queen of Austria". He came to international attention after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 for Austria with the song "Rise Like a Phoenix". Born in Gmunden, Neuwirth moved to Graz to do his Matura exam with a focus on fashion, before embarking on a singing career through the 2007 casting show Starmania. He subsequently became a founding member of Jetzt Anders!, a short-lived boy band. In 2011, Neuwirth began appearing as Conchita—a female character noted for her beard—and came second in the Austrian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. At the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, Neuwirth represented Austria as Conchita. His win brought him international attention and established him as a gay icon, resulting in invitations to perform at pride parades, the European Parliament, and the United Nations Office in Vienna.

== Early life == Neuwirth was born on 6 November 1988 in Gmunden and raised in the small town of Bad Mitterndorf, in the Styrian countryside in Austria. He stated that the mountainous area was a wonderful place to grow up, but that he faced prejudice for being gay: "Being a teenager, a gay teenager, in such a small village is not that much fun. I am part of the gay community and most gays have a similar story to mine." From an early age he recognised that he was different from other children, initially believing that this was because there was "something wrong" with him. He occasionally wore a skirt to kindergarten and then school, although subsequently felt that he could only be happy doing so in the attic of his home. Aged 14, Neuwirth moved to Graz to attend school, with a focus on fashion. His fashion icon was Victoria Beckham.

== Career ==

=== 2006–2013: Early musical career ===

In 2006, Neuwirth took part in the third edition of the Austrian TV show Starmania, finishing in second place behind Nadine Beiler. One year later, Neuwirth founded the boyband Jetzt Anders!, but the group disbanded that same year. Neuwirth then developed the drag persona of Conchita Wurst, a bearded woman. In the German language, "Wurst" means "sausage", although Neuwirth relates the choice of last name to the common German expression "Das ist mir doch alles Wurst", which translates as "it's all the same to me". The name "Conchita" had been adopted from a Cuban friend of his. He also explained that conchita is Spanish slang for vagina and Wurst is German slang for penis. Neuwirth asserted that the inclusion of the beard as part of the Conchita character was "a statement to say that you can achieve anything, no matter who you are or how you look." A beard as part of the drag look was pioneered in the 1970s by The Cockettes in San Francisco and the Bloolips in London. Conchita's first appearance was on Austrian Broadcasting (ORF)'s show Die große Chance ("The Big Chance") in 2011, where she placed sixth. In 2012, she competed in the Austrian National Final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 and came second. Conchita then appeared in the ORF show The Hardest Jobs of Austria, working in a fish processing plant, and in Wild Girls, in which a group of candidates had to survive in the deserts of Namibia together with native tribes.

=== Participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 ===

==== Selection ====

On 10 September 2013, Austrian national broadcaster ORF announced that it had selected Conchita to represent Austria at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen in May 2014. In March 2014, her song was revealed as "Rise Like a Phoenix", with bookmakers placing her as one of the ten favourites to win. Despite Eurovision's reputation for campness, Conchita's performance was designed to be serious and in good taste, and she was one of the few to appear onstage alone. Although individuals who identified as LGBT had appeared on Eurovision before—most notably Israel's Dana International, who won in 1998—Conchita's appearance was described by the New Statesman as the "most genderqueer yet". Conchita's selection proved controversial and attracted criticism from conservative groups, particularly in Eastern Europe, thus highlighting the continent's regional divide between east and west on the issue of homosexuality. In Austria, within four days after ORF announced its decision, more than 31,000 people 'liked' a Facebook "Anti-Wurst" page. Petitions emerged in Russia and Belarus calling for their respective national broadcasters to edit out Conchita's performance from the televised contest; the Russian petition asserted that Eurovision had become "a hotbed of sodomy, at the initiation of European liberals". Conservative Russian politician Vitaly Milonov urged Russia's Eurovision selection committee to boycott the competition as a result of Conchita's inclusion, describing her performance as "blatant propaganda of homosexuality and spiritual decay" and referring to her as the "pervert from Austria". Armenia's entry for the contest, Aram Mp3, stated that Neuwirth's lifestyle was "not natural" and that he should decide whether he was a man or woman. Neuwirth responded, "I told him I don't want to be a woman. I am just a working queen and a very lazy boy at home." Aram subsequently apologised, stating that his comments had been intended as a joke. Reacting to these sentiments, the New Statesman commented that "a vote for Wurst is another vote against Russian homophobia and transphobia, and a win would send out a strong message of defiance eastwards", while the International Business Times called on readers to vote for Conchita to upset homophobes. Highlighting statements such as these as evidence, Spiked declared that many Western European commentators and politicos had adopted Conchita as "a symbol of everything that makes Western Europe superior to the East" and that she had thus become part of a culture war against both Russia and "the so-called bigots and backward types" in their own nations.