With more than five months left until its celebration, Eurovision 2025 already has its first Eurodrama. Montenegro The Eurovision pre-selection season opened on November 26 with the Montesong festival, where the band NeonoeN was chosen to represent the country with the song Clickbait. However, just a week after their victory the group has given up competing in the European competition.
This decision comes after the controversy that the Montenegrin representatives have been involved in since their selection. And they were accused of having performed their song live before September 1, 2024, something that Eurovision bases banned for the songs submitted to the contest. However, this rule has been interpreted loosely on numerous occasions, allowing the participation of songs that had been heard before the set date.
Despite this, Montenegrin television RTCG responded to the controversy ensuring that he would study the case together with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and would make a decision, but the artists have gone ahead of themselves by refusing to go to the festival.
The band spoke out this Wednesday, December 4, through a statement to explain their resignation: “For the good of the public, with the desire to end the uncertainty and contribute once again to the music for which we are here in the first place. place, we inform you thate we voluntarily withdrew from participating in Eurovision. According to the regulations, RTCG will choose another representative and we will be the first to wish him luck and give him all our support,” they say.
“The victory at Montesong brought us publicity, the type and extent of which we did not choose nor could we control. We observe, and the facts confirm it, that the live performance of the version of the song did not jeopardize the Montesong festival process itself, nor could it affect your final result and our position” continues the writing, recalling “that there have been many similar examples and that the EBU always decided that those songs could participate (one even won the Eurovision Song Contest), because they did not have a competitive advantage over the others.”
But the band clarifies the reason why they have not waited to hear the organization’s decision: “We do not want to be part of any story outside of music, nor promote our own work in that way. Eurovision was never a goal in itself for us”.
Finally, NeonoeN thanks the management of RTCG, his fellow musicians and all the people who have surrounded him in this process, stating that his song “is still alive as a musical single and as a contemporary social phenomenon” and that they will support Montenegro at Eurovision 2025 .
For its part, RTCG has reacted to the group’s statement by thanking its members for their collaboration and sending them your support for future projects. The public broadcaster will make a decision in the coming days on who will replace the band as Montenegro’s representative at Eurovision, the final of which will take place on May 17 in Basel, Switzerland.
