Montaigne took part in a live Q&A on Eurovision's Instagram account tonight and revealed some important details on why Australia won't be in Rotterdam.
"SBS hired an independent risk assessor, to try and figure out if it would be safe or not for me and the delegation to go overseas from Australia. And ultimately they said it wasn't. It was their job to find any kind of option that made sense for us to go and they couldn’t but at the same time I have seen a few people sort of coming off a bit mean to SBS obviously in their eyes it is SBS that is depriving me of the experience when the truth is, its a pandemic and Australia doesn’t have any Covid cases at the moment"
Montaigne also touched on other reasons that impacted the decision.
"We wouldn’t want to bring anything back that would absolutely suck, and it would just, it would suck to be the people who like brought coronavirus back to Australia. They just like... so many situations that could have gone wrong involved in like the process going to Eurovision rehearsing and going to the hotel getting even food to you.
There are quite a few thousand cases in the Netherlands at the moment everyday, that’s a lot. The other thing is as well, this wasn’t part of the reason why we aren’t going…, I saw someone that was like you won’t be able to get a picture with Manizha, the thing is I wouldn’t have even been able to because I think every nation has to stay separate this year for Eurovision for safety reasons, So i wouldn’t have gotten to talk to anyone face to face or hang out or get pictures. it’s just a weird Eurovision, its just a weird year."
She also revealed her favourite entries which included 'Russian Woman' by Manizha, 'Tout l'Univers' by Gjon's Tears for Switzerland, Daði og Gagnamagnið with '10 Years' for Iceland and 'Fallen Angel' by Tix for Norway.
She will be releasing new music after Eurovision and will be working with Dave Hammer, who she worked on 'Technicolour' with. Additionally, she may be on tour later in the year as well.
Montaigne also touched on what it has meant to do Eurovision artist, particularly as a natural introvert, saying:
"I'm quite an introvert and I have anxiety so things like Eurovision actually make me quite freaked out...because it's a competition format and its a lot of interviews and a lot of attention ....as a performer it's been a bit challenging especially for me as an introvert as receiving all the emotional energy you receive online and elsewhere is quite taxing I think. But I wanted to do it for that reason, I wanted to be someone who isn't equipped for this kind of thing but can still persist through and do it and prove that you don't have to be a certain kind of person to accomplish performance at an international level."
We think she has done an amazing job over both 2020 and 2021 and this approach will no doubt inspire many like her who experience the same feelings.
Well done Montaigne and good luck for Eurovision 2021!
You can watch the full Q&A at https://www.instagram.com/eurovision/