China censored Ireland’s Eurovision performance
Ryan O'Shaughnessy's song depicts a gay romance
By Steve Brown
China censored Ireland’s Eurovision Song Contest performance as it depicted a gay romance.
Former Britain’s Got Talent star Ryan O’Shaughnessy was voted into Saturday night’s final after Europe backed his entry ‘Together’, which includes an onstage same-sex dance routine.
Taking its cue from the track’s official video, which sees a same-sex couple dancing through the streets of Dublin, O’Shaugnessy’s live performance was greeted with raputurous applause from inside the arena during Tuesday night’s first semi-final in Lisbon.
However, not everyone enjoyed the performance as China’s broadcaster Mango TV – which is run by Hunan TV, China’s second largest broadcaster – edited out the entire Irish song.
The broadcaster has been showing Eurovision in China since 2015 and it also removed the entire Albanian performance due to the ban on showing tattoos on TV.
It was speculated Ryan’s song wouldn’t be aired in Russia but it was shown in full but commentators told viewers it was a song about “true male friendship”.
Ryan, 25, who previously appeared on The Voice of Ireland before finishing in fifth place on the 2012 series of BGT, later secured the final qualification spot as the results were announced.