UK’s James Newman fails to score a single point at Eurovision

It was an embarrassing night for the UK as Italy took the title

The United Kingdom suffered a crushing defeat at the Eurovision Song Contest, as James Newman came away with zero points for his song Embers. The UK was the only country to not get a single point on the night from either the jury votes or the public vote.

The winners on the night were Italy, who won with rock band Maneskin and their in-you-face, no-holds-barred song Zitti E Buoni. In an exciting climax to the event as the public vote results were revealed, the Italian rockers were the most popular amongst the European public, beating France to the title by just 25 points, and becoming the first band to win the contest since 2006.

It was a yet another Eurovision night to forget for the UK though. After finishing last in the previous edition of the contest in 2019, there was hope that James Newman may fare better this year with his upbeat, horn-heavy tune Embers.

However it was worse.

Not only did the UK finish last, but poor James got the dreaded nul points, failing to get a single voting point from any country, in both the jury votes and general public vote.

However he is sure to have won some fans for the way he took the result. As the hosts announced that the UK got zero points, Newman stood up in the arena, to the applause of the crowd, waving his arms to louder cheers from the Dutch crowd and spraying his beer across the arena.

I know this is gutting, but the way the whole arena rallied around James Newman was a really touching #Eurovision pic.twitter.com/9U6cZDhgxT

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) May 22, 2021

He wasn’t the only one to be savaged in the public vote though. Germany, Spain, and hosts the Netherlands all got zero points from the public vote as well.

This is carnage #NulPoints #Eurovision

— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) May 22, 2021

There was plenty of support for James online though.