The Russian lesbian pop duo t.A.T.u. came in third in the Eurovision Song Contest
May 25 despite oddsmakers’ predictions they would win the wildly popular
pan-European competition.
The contest was held in Latvia, which won last year.
As they often do, t.A.T.u.’s Lena Katina and Julia Volkova kissed during their
performance, eliciting some boos from the largely Latvian audience. They sang
‘Don’t Fear, Don’t Ask,’ in Russian.
Turkey took home this year’s trophy for Sertab Erener’s ‘Every Way That I Can.’
Belgium’s Urban Trad came in second.
The winner is decided by the contest’s 160 million viewers who telephone or
text-message their votes. One cannot vote for one’s own country.
t.A.T.u.’s biggest hit, ‘All The Things She Said,’ hit No. 1 in several nations earlier
this year. In the song’s video, Volkova and Katina make out passionately.
The singers have said they plan to marry each other but still have sex with men as
well. Russian journalists have claimed the girls really are heterosexual and that
their manager, Ivan Shapovalov, invented the lesbian shtick for commercial
reasons.— Rex Wockner