Controversy has been swirling
in recent days regarding the scheduled appearance of bearded
Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst at Sanremo, Italy's annual
music festival, but festival host Carlo Conti downplayed the
controversy on Monday, saying the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest
winner was coming "just as an artist, to sing".
The decision to host Wurst at Sanremo, which is broadcast
on public TV station RAI1, raised the ire of the Catholic TV
viewer advocacy group AIART.
The group's president, Luca Borgomeo, said the decision to
host Wurst "shows for the umpteenth time how RAI (...) persists
in squandering public money, right at the time the annual public
television fee is to be paid, with guests of dubious quality".
Borgomeo said the drag queen would be paid about 120,000
euros for appearing at the festival.
Conti said this is the first year that the Sanremo winner
will automatically be given the opportunity to appear at
Eurovision, the annual Europe-wide music competition.
"So it seemed right to host the person who won last year.
If we were in 1974, we would have invited Abba," Conti said.
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