The representative of Belgium at Eurovision 2022 has been revealed and it’s Jérémie Makiese. He is a 20 years old geology student and singer from Berchem. He was born in Antwerp but at the age of 6 his family moved to Berchem-Sainte-Agathe then to Dilbeek before settling in Uccle. Jérémie speaks both Dutch and French. He is known to the Belgian audience as the winner of the 9th season of The Voice Belgique where he was coached by B.J. Scott. He was crowned as the winner of the show on 13th of April. Some of his performances include  “Jealous” by labirinth, “Revival” by Gregory Porter together with his mentor B.J.Scott  and “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson, the performance of it is available below

Jérémie Makiese expressed his wish to participate at Eurovision Song Contest in an interview for the French language newspaper, La Meuse. RTBF continued to follow their tradition which happened for the first time in 2013 by sending participants or winners of “The Voice Belgique” they sent the winner of the show, Roberto Bellarosa (Eurovision 2013) who reached 12th place in the final of Eurovision, then the runner up, Loïc Nottet (Eurovision 2015), whose song “Rhythm Inside” was co-written by his and Jérémie’s coach B.J. Scott, and led him to first Belgian top 5 finish since 2003, later Loïc  became one of the judges of the show. In 2017 Ellie Delvaux – Blanche repeated the result of Loïc reaching 4th place when she represented Belgium with “City Lights” and the last one being the only non qualifier Eliot Vassamillet (Eurovision 2019),  he ended on 13th place in the first semi-final.

From the beginning of Eurovision Song Contest Belgian representative was chosen by an alternation between VRT and RTBF. The two Belgian broadcasters are switching each year. So far this tradition has been changed three times. First in the 1990s and in 2001 when Belgium had to withdrew after having bad results at Eurovision. Since 2002, VRT has been doing all even years while all odd years were done by RTBF. The cancellation of Eurovision 2020 led them to the fourth change as VRT remains in charge for the Belgian entry in 2021. At Eurovision 2021 Belgium was represented by Hooverphonic whose “The Wrong Place” ended the contest as 19th.