Eurovision Flop Ruined My Life Says Singer Who Came 15th

Credit: CEN/@gaitanamusic
Singer Gaitana

A failed Eurovision contestant has said that her poor performance in coming 15th at the 2012 event ruined her relationship to her fiance and left her regularly smoking cannabis.

Gaita-Lurdes Klaverivna Essami, 40, better known by her stage name Gaitana, is a popular Ukrainian singer and songwriter who represented her country at the contest in Baku, in Azerbaijan. That contest was eventually won by singer Loreen from Sweden with her song “Euphoria”.

Gaitana was born in the capital city of Kiev in north-central Ukraine, but had been living in Congo, her father’s home country, from the age of one until six.

In 2012, she represented Ukraine at the Eurovision song contest but did not perform as well as she had planned, ending up only at 15th place.

She has recently revealed that her fiasco at the contest made her depressed and led to her regularly smoking cannabis and ruined her relationship with her then fiance and producer, Eduard Klim. She said for three months after the event she ended up taking cannabis daily.

Credit: CEN/@gaitanamusic
Singer Gaitana

She said: “We could not agree to put an end to our relationship. I left him, then he left me, then I left him again, and ran away to Congo, then to Sweden, I was running to different countries as I was running away from him. I was trying to run away from myself.”

By the time two years had passed following the Eurovision song contest, Gaitana, who is fluent in French, Ligana, Ukrainian and Russian, confessed she had been consuming a lot of cannabis that nearly destroyed her until she later found the strength to stop.

She said: “When I was hit by depression I started smoking pot several times a day in order to escape reality. I spent three months living like that.

She said it was down to the poor performance at the competition, and the break up of her relationship with her producer.

The signer specified that just like her, her producer Klim was not in the best shape at that time.

Credit: CEN/@gaitanamusic
Singer Gaitana

She said: “I spent another two years smoking marijuana about once a week, sometimes every two weeks. […] At some point I have realised that things cannot continue like that. I got out of this condition on my own, when I realised that I am about to die.”

It took her a while to find the strength to stop smoking cannabis and mend her relationship with her producer and she finally did so when she went back to Brazzaville, the largest city and capital of the Congo. Free from him and back in the home where she was born she was able to get off cannabis and rebuild her life.


To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By:  Anastasia SmirnovaSub-EditorJoseph Golder, Agency: Central European News


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