Andriy Danilko, better known by his stage name Verka Serdyuchka, explained why he did not become a judge for the National Selection for Eurovision 2025 and commented on this year's performance by the band Ziferblat. The artist gave an interview to the BBC Russian Service in London.
Danylko noted that he is not ready to evaluate the young participants because he does not want to offend anyone. According to him, all the contestants are different, and public humiliation for the sake of hype on the Internet is alien to him.
“I refused to sit on the jury of the National Selections for Eurovision. I don’t know how to judge them. They are all young, they are chosen. I look at them. I don’t want to say something offensive so that it will be discussed on the Internet later. They are all different. That’s why I say, decide everything yourself,” the artist explained.
He also shared his thoughts on this year's representative of Ukraine, the band Ziferblat, who performed at the competition with the song "Place I Call Home." Danylko admitted that he feels nostalgic for the times when there was more respect between artists, and not mass hate on social networks.
“These guys are performing now — the Ziferblat band. We even sang a fragment during our performance to support them. But people are so arranged that they want to shit on everything. Like, who did you send, what terrible costumes they have, the song is gi*no. Maybe that's why I still miss those times. We could never afford that. We had some respect,” said Danylko.
As a reminder, Andriy Danylko represented Ukraine at Eurovision in 2007 as Verka Serdyuchka with the song “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” and took second place. His performance is still considered one of the most striking in the entire history of Ukraine’s participation in the contest.
