Kate Ryan interested in Eurovision 2012.

Kate Ryan, Belgium’s foremost house/dance-pop star and 2006 Eurovision Song Contest representative, has stated in an interview to eurosong.be that she is interested and ready to return to the Contest for Belgium in 2012. Shortly after this year’s Contest, Kate posed a scintillating question on her Twitter page “Back To Eurovision? Yes Or No?” The answer from her fans was a resounding ‘YES’. Indeed, it was probably this overwhelming support that led Kate to make up her mind about returning. “I posted on Twitter because that was what I thought: ‘Maybe I should once again take part’. I wanted to see what reaction I would get. Everyone immediately said ‘do do do'”.

During the interview, she stated that “The desire to return, to participate in the Contest is back. VRT can definitely call me.”. Furthermore, she stressed that “I would do this time totally differently. From 2006 until now I have had a lot of action and a lot of experience. I think it will anyway be different than when it was.” And it is true that Kate does have a much bigger fan-base in Europe than she did in 2006 and is now much more well-known across the continent. This would be yet another advantage to Kate’s candidacy, along with her talent, experience and stage presence. Her participation in next year’s Contest would most definitely set the precedent and throw down the gauntlet to the other countries.

Kate Ryan performing 'Je t'adore' for Belgium at the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest in Athens.

In 2006, Belgium was represented by Kate Ryan and her song Je t’Adore, and was the firm favourite for victory going into the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens. With easily the best song in the competition and a fantastic performance, the country’s failure to qualify from the Semi-Final caused much disconcertion and outcry from fans and spectators. Since then, both singer and song live on in infamy in Eurovision culture with the Kate Ryan Award (an annual award handed out to the favourite that did not qualify) as one of the best examples of this, while many fans invariably always list Je t’Adore as one of their favourite Eurovision entries of recent years. However, Kate has no negative experiences from 2006. “I thought it was super fun in 2006, despite the great disappointment which then hung on down. There is still a few years gone.”

It’s been six years and Kate’s career has only gone from strength to strength. We are confident that she will use this experience and success to do much better this time around and give Belgium its best placing ever. And just to show how far she has come, here’s a compilation of her latest concert, courtesy of Absolute Freedom:

ASFE whole-heartedly supports Kate Ryan’s return to the Eurovision Song Contest!

Editor’s Note: Please note that all quotes have been roughly translated from Dutch, the original language in which the interview with eurosong.be was conducted and that the English translations have been kept as close as possible in context.

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