Yahoo News Eurovision 2019 host promises "unbelievable" Madonna performance
The Eurovision Song Contest confirmed its worst-kept secret earlier this week by officially announcing that the one and only Madonna would be performing during the show's 2019 Grand Final.
According to the announcement, Madonna will be performing her classic hit 'Like A Prayer' as well as her new single 'Future', and now one of the hosts of tonight's (May 18) show has teased that the superstar has something brilliant planned.
"I saw the rehearsal yesterday," Assi Azar told Graham Norton on his Radio 2 show this morning.
"It's an amazing show, what she's doing on the stage. She's literally taking over our entire stage, changing it completely."
Related: Eurovision – 8 UK entries that were totally robbed of the trophy
He continued: "I can say she's literally building a chapel inside our arena in 40 seconds. That's the time she has from the moment we get off the stage to the moment she goes on the stage. It's unbelievable."
And according to Assi, who'll be hosting the show alongside Erez Tal, Bar Refaeli and Lucy Ayoub live from Expo Tel Aviv, there was never any doubt in his mind that Madonna would be performing, despite all the conflicting reports.
"I think that we should be so honoured that Madonna came all the way here to perform for us," he said. "Of course. Both sides get a lot out of it – Eurovision gets Madonna, no need to explain, Madonna gets the 200 million viewers that are watching her tonight.
"Every time that something happened like she is performing, she's not performing, I thought, 'It's going to close at the end'. She's gonna perform at the end, so let's just move on from the ego issues of both sides."
A post shared by Eurovision Song Contest (@eurovision) on May 14, 2019 at 12:09pm PDT
Representing the UK tonight will be All Together Now and Eurovision: You Decide winner Michael Rice, who'll be performing his winning song 'Bigger Than Us'.
You can find out where we've placed in the running order of the final right here.
You'll be able to watch the whole show live on BBC One, and if you haven't got access to that the evening will also be live streamed for free on YouTube.
Graham Norton will host the BBC's coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest, which starts on BBC One at 8pm.
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