French President Reportedly Tried To Disqualify Måneskin From Eurovision

Måneskin skyrocketed into superstardom after winning last year's Eurovision Song Contest; however, French president Emmanuel Macron was determined to get the Italian rockers disqualified, with France's entry Barbara Pravi in second place.

According to French journalist/presenter Stéphane Bern, Macron called and demanded Måneskin be disqualified after rumors began circulating that singer Damiano David did drugs in the green room. (He voluntarily took and passed a drug test to debunk the claims.)

“It was a big, big mess,” Bern told BBC. “I received so many messages on my mobile – even one from the French president – telling me Måneskin had to be disqualified, saying, ‘You have to do something, please.’"

“The French minister for European affairs, who was in Rotterdam for the contest, sent me messages also saying, ‘What should we do? What should we do? Please do something,’” he added. “But what could I have done? I wasn’t hosting. I’m not the President of the Eurovision!"

“Delphine Ernotte [president of the European Broadcasting Union] said that if we [France] win, we want to be the winners on merit, not because we have disqualified the first place act," Bern noted. "So we didn’t make any buzz or protest around that.”

Bassist Angela De Angelis commented on the accusations shortly after Måneskin's big win. “We never did that and we would never do such a thing on live television with 180million people watching us,” she told NME. “We’ve never used cocaine or other drugs so we immediately said, ‘Just test us because we have nothing to hide and we don’t want people to talk about stupid things like this and not our music.’ We were so happy with our victory, so we wanted to keep the focus on us and not this stupid s**t.”

Måneskin will be taking their glam rock to North American this fall. Check out a full list of tour dates here.