After Saturday night’s Melodifestivalen result, much has been made of the winner Loreen. But almost as much has been said about the first runner-up, Danny Saucedo.
There’s been a very mixed reaction of feelings towards him, from every side of the Melodifestivalen spectrum. The Swedish press have been awfully quick to criticise him as a sore loser, thanks mainly to his decision not to attend the SVT after party on Saturday night. Some of the other artists from the final have spoken out about how they feel sorry for him, for they know how much he wanted to win. Then there are his fans who have been sending him their support, and posting messages online that it “should have been Danny“. And finally there are the millions upon millions of people – both in Sweden and outside of Sweden – who watched the show on Saturday night, every one of them with their own opinion on the result.
But Danny himself has now finally spoken out about the result and how he’s feeling about everything. He took to his Facebook page this afternoon, and wrote the below statement – to answer the obvious questions on everyone’s minds.
It was in Swedish, but here we’ve worked on an English translation;
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Hello there, Sweden! 😉
Yesterday I took it easy and just cleared my head and hung out with family.
It was nice to spend time with loved ones who so often get sidelined due to lack of time or other priorities. It was a full day which ended with a trip to the cinema.
Today I’ve been on the internet a bit and seen what’s been written, and apparently I have become Sweden’s number 1 sour grapes! 🙂
When you prepare for a three minute performance over a six month period, it turns into something enormously big. I do not really know what to compare it to. It’s kind of like a build up to Christmas, only once it’s time to celebrate with the family and eat good food and open gifts – the family doesn’t show up, all the food is gone and all the presents too. (Furthermore, it also appears that Father Christmas has been unable to attend!), It becomes very empty and you feel – well, empty and disappointed.
It’s a physical and a psychological out pour, quite simply. The emotions are huge, and honest as I am (sometimes too honest), I’ll express my disappointment.
Now I know that you should not say that you want to win – or even worse, to retrospectively say that you are disappointed. Well I did both of those things! 🙂 Anyway I am in any case honest with my feelings. Of course I wanted to win and represent Sweden with my little flashing number. I’m glad that I took the chance to compete in the contest two years running. Second place is not bad. In Melodifestivalen history, it is only Loreen and The Ark that have received more votes than ‘Amazing’.
A great big congratulations to Loreen who made a strong impression and did a fantastic job. Now she will take home the Eurovision trophy so that we in Sweden will have the spectacle next year.
I want to again thank all of you who actually voted for me. You who were with me and believed in me. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I love you so much.
I’m out in the sun now.
G’bless.
/Danny Saucedo
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In other news, SVT today released the full voting statistics of Melodifestivalen 2012. Danny Saucedo might take some comfort from the fact that in the heat stages of the competition, he got marginally more votes than Loreen – and everybody else for that matter!
