The first dress rehearsal of the Grand Final of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest is well underway. Whilst all 26 acts attended the Flag Parade at the beginning of the rehearsal, the Dutch entrant Joost Klein skipped his slot and didn’t perform/rehearse his song “Europapa”.

The Dutch Eurovision entrant Joost Klein qualified last night for the Eurovision Final from Semi Final 2, and thus earned his place in the best 26 of this year. However, things have gone a south for Joost since last night, as a lot of negative press has gone his way due to his acting during the qualifiers’ press conference, and being placed 5th in the running order (just after Luxembourg and before Israel) may not have helped the situation, given his political views.

At the qualifiers’ press conference, journalist from MAD TV Greece asked Joost: “Your song unites so many emotions in just three minutes – it’s a rollercoaster of emotions. Do you think that your song can unite us all by music?”. His very brief response to this question, after turning his head towards the Israeli entrant sitting next to him, was:

I think that’s a good question for the EBU.

Now Joost completely skipped his queue to rehearse his song “Europapa” in the first dress rehearsal of the Grand Final, for unknown reasons. The stage props for the Netherlands were brought on to the stage after Luxemboug’s performance, but then shortly afterwards the stage director indicated that these need to be brought back, and that we are continuing with song 6.

Many rumors are immediately starting to arise – including one that he might withdraw from the Final? The EBU gave us the following statement:

We are currently investigating an incident that was reported to us involving the Dutch artist. He will not be rehearsing until further notice. We have no further comment at this time and will update in due course.

We will keep informing you about everything that happens during this dress rehearsal, as well as tonight’s Jury Final in live blogs, so stay tuned.