Harel Skaat's Post-Eurovision Coming Out

MAY 15 2010 · 12:05

Harel Skaat · "Milim" · Israel · 2010 Placement: 14 · Score: 71 · Language: Hebrew · Composers: Noam Horev, Tomer Hadadi · Venue: Telenor Arena · Host: Oslo, Norway · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: streaming era Skaat — Israeli pop singer, 29 — takes the Telenor Arena stage alone and delivers 'Milim' ('Words') in Hebrew, minimal staging, pure vocal focus. He wins the Marcel Bezençon Artistic Award from accredited Eurovision press for the strongest artistic performance. 14th place overall. Lena wins for Germany with 'Satellite'. Weeks after Eurovision, journalist Gal Uchovsky outs Skaat in a Yediot Aharonot interview. Skaat subsequently confirms publicly, framing it as 'not how I wanted this conversation'. Context Skaat had been a private figure before 2010. Israeli LGBTQ+ visibility had been growing through the 2000s — Dana International's 1998 win, significant Tel Aviv Pride. The Uchovsky outing was controversial within Israeli media-ethics circles. Skaat's public response established him as a quietly important LGBTQ+ Israeli artist. Legacy Skaat became a visible figure in Israeli LGBTQ+ cultural life. He performed at the 2016 Bar Noar memorial concert commemorating victims of a 2009 Tel Aviv LGBTQ+ center shooting. His 2010 Eurovision performance is now frequently cited in LGBTQ+ Eurovision scholarship. The Bezençon award vindicated the artistic quality of the entry independently of the later coming-out narrative.