“I’m in the middle of this whole thing, and I also find it hard to explain what happened,” Mr. Toth said. “People are rooting for him like they’re rooting for the Hungarian national soccer team.”
Politics, however, has destroyed Azahriah’s chances of representing her country in Europe’s musical equivalent of the World Cup, the Eurovision Song Contest. Authorities, alarmed by Eurovision’s reputation as Europe’s biggest gay event, ended Hungary’s participation in the annual competition in 2020.
“It would have been amazing if I could have won Eurovision as a straight white guy,” Azahriah said.
David Sajo, entertainment editor for Telex, a popular Hungarian online media, said he wasn’t a big fan, but praised Azahriah for broadening Hungarian musical horizons with her mix of Afrobeat, Caribbean ska, Latin music and other genres that are “pretty basic and generic in the West, but unique here.”
Sajo said Azahriah's big break actually came in 2022 with a scandal that could have ended many other careers. After a concert at a provincial pancake festival, a video surfaced online showing the artist having sex backstage with a fan.
