Eurovision’s Loreen: ‘I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for the LGBTQ+ community’

When Loreen won Eurovision with hit song ‘Euphoria’ in 2012, everything changed for the Swedish singer. In May this year, 11 years after her first win, she returned to the competition for her second shot at lifting the iconic trophy. And she only went and did it. Her performance of the fiery pop anthem ‘Tattoo’ saw the singer become the first woman to win the contest twice. With a Europe-wide tour, a summer full of festival appearances and lots more bangers on the way, she’s got plenty more incredible moments ahead, which she can’t wait to share with her tans.

After an indisputably huge 2023 so far, Loren starts by quickly expressing her gratitude to her LGBTQ+ following for always supporting her since day one. “The thing is, I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for the LGBTQ+ community,” she begins. “I was a struggling artist back in the day, knocking on every door, asking, ‘Hey, where can I be? Can I be here? No, you can’t be here. Can I be here?’ The Swede confesses that she always felt “different”, but finally found a place of acceptance in the industry through the help and love of the queer community.

She continues: “I don’t wear any shoes, I like snow on stage. I had all these ideas, but then I knocked at [the LGBTQ+] community’s door, asking ‘Hey, can I be here with you guys?’ They said, ‘We like you just the way you are.’ Do you see what I mean? This community, they embraced me. They let me be me. They let me be creative. I’ve never felt more at home than with this community. It’s such an important part of me because it’s me! I’ve realised that I don’t want to be anyone else.

“Many people are so focused on sex, on sexuality. Love is so much more.”

Loreen came out as bisexual during a 2017 Swedish television interview with TV host Renée Nyberg. “Many people are so focused on sex, on sexuality. Love is so much more. I usually say: ‘Love is where you find it’,” she said at the time. When asked to clarify whether this meant she identifies as bisexual, Loreen said she “quite simply” was.

Reflecting on that moment during our chat, she recalls the live TV admission as an “unconscious” decision. “They asked me a question, I answered, and said that love is where you find it. I truly believe that love is where you find it,” she explains. “I was also in love with a girl when I was a kid. For me, at least, it’s such a natural thing, so I didn’t give it that much thought. It was so natural.”

The singer, who was born to Moroccan immigrant parents in Akersberga, Sweden, recalls being a “weird kid” and barely knowing anything about Melodifestivalen (Sweden’s Eurovision selection process), let alone Eurovision itself, when she was younger. “I preferred my own company. I was raised in a big family with a lot of siblings and a lot of helping mother out, because she was alone, to make ends meet,” she says. “We didn’t have that much, we had three channels. I didn’t know anything about any of that. I just knew at some point in my life, very late, though, that I wanted to work with music.”

“You can imagine, I was just trying to find my people.”

She finally got her big break when a producer for Melodifestivalen heard her recording in the studio and begged her to give the competition a go. “He was gay – this was not a coincidence,” she laughs. “I was just singing in this small, f**ked-up studio when he passed by and he heard me sing. Very passionately, I was singing ‘My Heart Is Refusing Me’. He came in, and then he saw me. I can’t really remember what he said, but to my producer, he said, ‘I want her for the Melodifestivalen.'” This song ended up being Loren’s Melodifestivalen entry in 2011, before she made it through to Eurovision with ‘Euphoria’ the following year.

Talking more about the experience of being discovered, she continues: “You can imagine, I was just trying to find my people. Can somebody just work with me?! That was how ‘My Heart Is Refusing Me’ came about. That was my first experience. I didn’t know anything about Melodifestivalen or Eurovision. Nothing. Still today, I don’t even know how the system works! Do they have 12 points? Do they have 30?!”

The relationship between Eurovision and the LGBTQ+ community has been close for decades. Previous LGBTO+ contestants and winners include trans star Dana International, drag queen Conchita Wurst and Duncan Laurence. “How inspired am I by other LGBTQ+ artists from Eurovision? Well, very much. It’s such a beautiful thing when you muster the strength to stand for what you are on such a platform,” notes Loreen. “You have to be a very strong and powerful person to do that. It’s so beautiful and it’s very, very inspiring.”

“You made it possible for me to create, to be a creator, and you’ve accepted me from my weirdness.”

When reflecting on queer artists who inspire her, Loreen simply replies: “All of them inspire me. They’re all so beautiful. The first person that comes to mind is actually Conchita [Wurst, the 2014 Eurovision winner]. I love her very much. We’re friends. She’s very spiritual too,” before cheekily adding: “She just does things in a very sexy way!”

Queer fans message Loreen “all the time”, which she absolutely loves. “These are my people; we have the same mindset. If somebody asked me, ‘What is it to feel free?’ It’s just doing exactly what you feel, expressing yourself exactly the way you want to express yourself, loving yourself the way you want to and talking the way you want to talk. When you don’t care about what other people think, that is true freedom. If you compare it to another community where there are rules and regulations on how you’re supposed to look and talk, that’s a fucking jail.”

Lastly, I ask what winning an Attitude Pride ICON Award at the 2023 Attitude Pride Awards, in association with Magnum means to her. In her typical style, she delivers a very playful response: “The child in me is like [screams], but the grown-up in me is telling me to take it easy. I’m very happy and thankful. I want to create an award and give it to the ones who gave me the award. As I said, I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for you. You made it possible for me to create, to be a creator, and you’ve accepted me from my weirdness. It’s a type of unconditional love. That’s so beautiful. It’s just like having a big family.”

The Attitude July/August issue is available to download and order now.