To bring up some context: From the moment the competing songs were revealed to the press, Ultimo's 'I tuoi particolari' was tipped by many as the favorite to win it all. Once the week-long festival started, the predictions strengthened even more, including among international viewers (reference #1). During the first, second and third night the voting would be 40% televoting, 30% demoscopic jury and 30% press jury. During the final night televoting would be 50%, the press jury 30% and the expert jury (aka Jury of Honor) 20%. Then after closing the televoting, the combination results of all five nights would reveal the 3 super finalists. After a few--and rather usual--demonstrations of the press 'personal hate' towards Il Volo during that week's TV appearances and media articles, and a few heated exchange of words between Ultimo and some journalists, the night of the Grand Final had come. The announcement that Ultimo, Il Volo and Mahmood had advanced to the Super Final, leaving living-legend diva Loredana Bertè out of the race, caused an uproar in the audience of Ariston Theatre, who booed and shouted her name for several minutes straight. In the Super Final, even though Ultimo slayed the televote, gaining 49% of the public vote, Mahmood triumphed with 'Soldi', with Ultimo coming second and Il Volo third. The realization that Mahmood's victory came thanks to the strong support of the press jury and the expert jury triggered violent reactions, including within the highest levels of Italian politics. A few seconds after the announcement of Mahmood‘s triumph, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini revealed that he was a huge fan of runner-up Ultimo. The opinion of Salvini--who has always been very critical of foreigners and the EU’s management of asylum seekers--has opened a ferocious discussion on social media, which has seen his supporters lash out against Mahmood, who is apparently “guilty” of having an Egyptian father and of mentioning Ramadan and shisha, and of having a sentence in Arabic in his song. Unjustified racism against the singer, born and raised in Milan, created a wave of dissent and led several artists to come to his defence. Ermal Meta was one of them: "To all those who say that Mahmood’s victory is a political one, do not throw sh*t on something beautiful. Music has no passports, but if you really want to 'check', Alessandro has an Italian passport." (reference #2) Tempers then seemed to be running a little high at the press conference right after the end of the Festival, where more heated exchange of words between Ultimo and the journalists took place, generating two main opposing sides of opinion. There were those who saw Ultimo's exasperation as the result of the press' continuous provocations and to them the journalists teased the singer-songwriter, taunting him to talk about the results and the winner, and purposedly misinterpreted his reference to Mahmood as 'ragazzo' (young man). At some point during the press conference, Ultimo even said they were just waiting for him to say anything to create a scandal out of it and write an article about it: “Whatever I say, it’ll never be good enough for y'all and you’ll find a way to twist it.” There were even reportedly some rude words shouted by some unprofessional journalists at Ultimo, such as 'a**hole', 'b***ard', 'sore loser' and 'oh, it burns, doesn’t it?' And then there are those who say the journalists were only doing their job, that Ultimo was the one being really immature and unprofessional for having snapped at the press like that, that he was arrogant and a real sore loser. To add more fuel to the flames, footage of journalists in the press room insulting Il Volo during their performance and cheering at their failure to win went viral, sparking widespread indignation. And as if that were not enough, Ultimo, Loredana Bertè, Arisa (who was still ill) and Il Volo (who had reportedly notified beforehand they had some commitments abroad) didn't attend the traditional post-Sanremo Sunday TV show 'Domenica In'. Not only that, but Ultimo also wasn't present at the classic 'TV Sorrisi e Canzoni' magazine cover, which for decades has featured the Top 3 acts of Sanremo Festival. And to top it all, when the full results of the Festival were disclosed (reference #3) it stirred up even more controversy. Apparently, Ultimo came first, Il Volo came second and Mahmood was third in the final ranking: Ultimo won the televoting, Il Volo were 2nd, Loredana Berte came 3rd, Arisa 4th and Simone Cristicchi came 5th, with Mahmood reaching only the 7th place; the press jury gave maximum points to Loredana Bertè, while Mahmood came 2nd and Daniele Silvestri came 3rd, with Ultimo finishing 6th and Il Volo 13th; the expert jury gave maximum points to Mahmood, Daniele Silvestri finished 2nd and Arisa 3rd, while Ultimo was 6th in their ranking and Il Volo 21st. After the last voting among the three top scorers, Ultimo won the televoting, Il Volo came 2nd and Mahmood 3rd, but the expert jury and the press jury ranked Mahmood first which gave him the victory. The 2019 Sanremo Music Festival wasn't the first controversial edition and surely won't be the last, but it is undoubtedly one of the editions which has caused the greatest deal of debate on whether some rules should be changed or not.
The way those people treated the members of Il Volo and Ultimo is just plain disgusting. They were baiting Ulti so hard to the point that of course he was going to snap back and while of course he could've handled it a little better I don't blame him one bit. The organizers seriously need to overhaul the way the festival is run and those journalists need to be banned.
Credo che i miei adorati ragazzi de Il Volo non potessero rispondere meglio a quei quattro giornalai che li hanno insultati senza motivo. E anche Ultimo per quanto la sua musica possa non piacermi non lo insulto in questo modo, e lo stimo per come ha reagito
Those bullies don’t matter.... in America we truly LOVE GIANLUCA, IGNAZIO & PIERO... to this day. A lot of are FANS FOR LIFE of IL VOLO... and nothing can change that.
Me alegro mucho que ganara Il Volo, estan recuperando la buena musica para bien de las proximas generaciones. Gracias a esos jovenes talentosos, profesionales y educados.
![Breakfast with IL Volo [English Subtitles]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QUBfZtipalQ/mqdefault.jpg)
To bring up some context:
From the moment the competing songs were revealed to the press, Ultimo's 'I tuoi particolari' was tipped by many as the favorite to win it all. Once the week-long festival started, the predictions strengthened even more, including among international viewers (reference #1).
During the first, second and third night the voting would be 40% televoting, 30% demoscopic jury and 30% press jury. During the final night televoting would be 50%, the press jury 30% and the expert jury (aka Jury of Honor) 20%. Then after closing the televoting, the combination results of all five nights would reveal the 3 super finalists.
After a few--and rather usual--demonstrations of the press 'personal hate' towards Il Volo during that week's TV appearances and media articles, and a few heated exchange of words between Ultimo and some journalists, the night of the Grand Final had come. The announcement that Ultimo, Il Volo and Mahmood had advanced to the Super Final, leaving living-legend diva Loredana Bertè out of the race, caused an uproar in the audience of Ariston Theatre, who booed and shouted her name for several minutes straight. In the Super Final, even though Ultimo slayed the televote, gaining 49% of the public vote, Mahmood triumphed with 'Soldi', with Ultimo coming second and Il Volo third.
The realization that Mahmood's victory came thanks to the strong support of the press jury and the expert jury triggered violent reactions, including within the highest levels of Italian politics. A few seconds after the announcement of Mahmood‘s triumph, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini revealed that he was a huge fan of runner-up Ultimo. The opinion of Salvini--who has always been very critical of foreigners and the EU’s management of asylum seekers--has opened a ferocious discussion on social media, which has seen his supporters lash out against Mahmood, who is apparently “guilty” of having an Egyptian father and of mentioning Ramadan and shisha, and of having a sentence in Arabic in his song. Unjustified racism against the singer, born and raised in Milan, created a wave of dissent and led several artists to come to his defence. Ermal Meta was one of them: "To all those who say that Mahmood’s victory is a political one, do not throw sh*t on something beautiful. Music has no passports, but if you really want to 'check', Alessandro has an Italian passport." (reference #2)
Tempers then seemed to be running a little high at the press conference right after the end of the Festival, where more heated exchange of words between Ultimo and the journalists took place, generating two main opposing sides of opinion. There were those who saw Ultimo's exasperation as the result of the press' continuous provocations and to them the journalists teased the singer-songwriter, taunting him to talk about the results and the winner, and purposedly misinterpreted his reference to Mahmood as 'ragazzo' (young man). At some point during the press conference, Ultimo even said they were just waiting for him to say anything to create a scandal out of it and write an article about it: “Whatever I say, it’ll never be good enough for y'all and you’ll find a way to twist it.” There were even reportedly some rude words shouted by some unprofessional journalists at Ultimo, such as 'a**hole', 'b***ard', 'sore loser' and 'oh, it burns, doesn’t it?' And then there are those who say the journalists were only doing their job, that Ultimo was the one being really immature and unprofessional for having snapped at the press like that, that he was arrogant and a real sore loser.
To add more fuel to the flames, footage of journalists in the press room insulting Il Volo during their performance and cheering at their failure to win went viral, sparking widespread indignation. And as if that were not enough, Ultimo, Loredana Bertè, Arisa (who was still ill) and Il Volo (who had reportedly notified beforehand they had some commitments abroad) didn't attend the traditional post-Sanremo Sunday TV show 'Domenica In'. Not only that, but Ultimo also wasn't present at the classic 'TV Sorrisi e Canzoni' magazine cover, which for decades has featured the Top 3 acts of Sanremo Festival.
And to top it all, when the full results of the Festival were disclosed (reference #3) it stirred up even more controversy. Apparently, Ultimo came first, Il Volo came second and Mahmood was third in the final ranking: Ultimo won the televoting, Il Volo were 2nd, Loredana Berte came 3rd, Arisa 4th and Simone Cristicchi came 5th, with Mahmood reaching only the 7th place; the press jury gave maximum points to Loredana Bertè, while Mahmood came 2nd and Daniele Silvestri came 3rd, with Ultimo finishing 6th and Il Volo 13th; the expert jury gave maximum points to Mahmood, Daniele Silvestri finished 2nd and Arisa 3rd, while Ultimo was 6th in their ranking and Il Volo 21st. After the last voting among the three top scorers, Ultimo won the televoting, Il Volo came 2nd and Mahmood 3rd, but the expert jury and the press jury ranked Mahmood first which gave him the victory.
The 2019 Sanremo Music Festival wasn't the first controversial edition and surely won't be the last, but it is undoubtedly one of the editions which has caused the greatest deal of debate on whether some rules should be changed or not.
References:
#1
escxtra.com/2019/02/09/ultimo-sanremo-italy-predicted/
#2
wiwibloggs.com/2019/02/18/following-political-backlash-ermal-meta-defends-mahmood-music-has-no-passports/
#3
www.rai.it/dl/doc/2019/02/10/1549808790256_Risultati_Televoto_Sanremo_2019.pdf
The way those people treated the members of Il Volo and Ultimo is just plain disgusting. They were baiting Ulti so hard to the point that of course he was going to snap back and while of course he could've handled it a little better I don't blame him one bit. The organizers seriously need to overhaul the way the festival is run and those journalists need to be banned.
Credo che i miei adorati ragazzi de Il Volo non potessero rispondere meglio a quei quattro giornalai che li hanno insultati senza motivo. E anche Ultimo per quanto la sua musica possa non piacermi non lo insulto in questo modo, e lo stimo per come ha reagito
😢 why so nasty to them. I hope they behave this year. All artist work hard for this. To slay them with vulgar words is beyond cruel.
Che vergogna!
Amore mio Il Volo
Those bullies don’t matter.... in America we truly LOVE GIANLUCA, IGNAZIO & PIERO... to this day. A lot of are FANS FOR LIFE of IL VOLO... and nothing can change that.
Ma loro sono simpaticissimi e sono cantanti perfetti ❣️
Me alegro mucho que ganara Il Volo, estan recuperando la buena musica para bien de las proximas generaciones. Gracias a esos jovenes talentosos, profesionales y educados.
Senza IL VOLO NON SI VEDRA' il festival li va solo gente travestita. Senza voce non si capisce una parola. Passeremo oltre cosi non ci arrabbieremo
Solo il 2015 abbiamo visto il festival l' emozione abbiamo provato con i bravissimi de IL VOLO E POCHI ALTRI. POI ABBIAMO CHIUSO CON I FESTIVAL