Manel Navarro has once again commented on his controversial time at Eurovision in 2017, where a rooster at the end of his performance of ‘Do It for Your Lover’ cost him the last place in the final and cut short his musical career, which has not taken off since then, although he has seen the publication of a long album after Eurovision, ‘Cicatriz’ (2021), which contained collaborations with Belén Aguilera or the recent participants of Benidorm Fest, tightrope walker
In his talk with Dani Sousa for the podcast Vergüenza, available on Podimo, Navarro remembers the harassment and insults he received from the Spanish audience present in Ukraine immediately after finishing his performance, showing tablets with phrases like “Manuel, die” or shouting “Manel, fuck you.” The artist explains that, once he arrived in Spain, the attacks intensified and he experienced situations such as being spat on in the street or being threatened with death, as well as humiliating experiences, such as having “ice thrown at him”, which caused him to develop stage fright.
One of the most revealing moments of the interview occurs when Navarro tells how Sony, the record company that promoted his candidacy for Eurovision, turned its back on him after his time at the festival. He remembers that Sony suggested that he go live in Madrid, in an apartment paid for by the record company, but that it later withdrew its support and invited him to leave the apartment immediately: “I came back from Eurovision and two days later they slipped me a letter under the door telling me that I had two days to leave the apartment,” he explains. “They made me give up everything: I left my degree, I left everything, I came to Madrid and, as soon as I returned, the record company stopped paying for my apartment.”
Navarro regrets that his managers also cut off their professional relationship with him and that he found himself “alone”, having to move to Alcorcón with a friend. “The same people who got me into that mess are the same people who, when it went wrong, ran away,” he says.
The singer suspects that the candidacy for ‘Do It for Your Lover’ was hasty, since he barely had a musical career and his team from the beginning asked him for “instant results.” A single rooster was enough for the industry to turn its back on him, including other artists: “No one has ever wanted to risk it, in the end I had to come back from there and everyone turned their backs on me,” he says. «It has even been difficult for me to meet certain artists to write. Nobody says it to my face, but then they talk and it comes to me from other people.
Navarro says he is reconciled with his time at Eurovision, since he considers that the rooster was due to bad luck, since it had never happened to him before, and he assures that he has overcome it: “I never think about that, a mistake does not define us. I had my mistake, but it will end up happening. In the end, whether you want it or not, for better or worse, I have a name.
