Silvester Belt is Lithuania’s first out LGBTQ+ entrant at Eurovision. (Eurovision/EBU/Sarah Louise Bennett)
This 12 months, singer-songwriter Silvester Belt is making historical past as the primary LGBTQ+ artist to symbolize Lithuania on the Eurovision Tune Contest.
At 26-years-old, he’s had a powerful profession to this point: aged simply 12, he grew to become a finalist in Lithuania’s preselection for the Junior Eurovision Tune Contest in 2010. He’s starred in actuality contests, together with the Lithuanian model of The X Issue, and gained music present Aš – superhitas in 2017.
But Eurovision 2024 marks his largest profession transfer to-date, and to this point, it’s going properly. Bookies predict he’ll end on the left aspect of the leaderboard. His music, hypnotic eurobanger “Luktelk”, has hit over 5 million Spotify streams worldwide. In Lithuania, it hit quantity on the charts and stayed there for a number of weeks.
It’s an enormous feat for any artist within the nation – however notably for a bisexual one.
“Zero. It’s nada. It’s non-existent,” says Belt, chatting with PinkNews about LGBTQ+ illustration in Lithuania’s music scene. It’s one thing he’s clearly keen about. “Everyone seems to be pretending to be what they’re not, and it p***es me off a lot.”
Whereas Eurovision has championed LGBTQ+ artists for many years, Lithuania has by no means despatched an out one to the competition. In Belt’s view, there’s a tradition of worry amongst Lithuanian artists about being seen as LGBTQ+, as they really feel there’s “a lot at stake” and that they may “lose [their] profession” in the event that they have been to ever come out.
It’s not an unwarranted worry. Identical-sex marriage is illegitimate within the nation, whereas a 2020 survey discovered that six in ten LGBTQ+ individuals are by no means open about their id. For Lithuanians with a public profile, the concept of popping out seemingly feels inconceivable.
Belt struggled with homophobia in school and admits he used to “hate” himself due to his sexuality, however he was out and “snug” with being LGBTQ+ earlier than his first grownup TV look. He didn’t must cope with popping out in the identical means some stars with a platform may need to.
Nevertheless, he thinks if the situation have been totally different, and he had ascended to movie star standing earlier than popping out, he’d nonetheless relatively be “trustworthy” with himself and the world, “relatively than simply pretending that you just’re somebody you’re not”.
His “honesty” has baffled some Lithuanian artists, he says. “They’re like, ‘Properly, it’s a private factor, and I don’t wish to discuss it, and blah, blah, blah.” He understands the place they’re coming from, “however saying you’re homosexual or no matter – it’s not a private factor. It’s similar to saying you may have blue eyes. It’s not such as you’re speaking about what you’re doing in mattress.”
The primary purpose he’s annoyed by the shortage of LGBTQ+ illustration in his nation is that he thinks it might change the inhabitants’s mindset. Six in ten Lithuanians nonetheless imagine that same-sex relationships are “mistaken”.
“If each single LGBTQ artist in Lithuania, not even artists, if everybody [would] come out, I really feel like Lithuania would change in a day,” he says. “It’s simply loopy that we have now this large elephant within the room and we’re simply pretending it’s not there.”
Eurovision is big in Lithuania; in 2021, virtually a 3rd of the inhabitants watched the grand remaining. To date, he’s survived being the nation’s entrant with out homophobic incident (in particular person, that’s. On-line, the trolls are out in full drive – however what’s new there? Plus, he’s unbothered by that. “I’ve heard all of it,” he sighs.)
“That’s the factor. I’m not even struggling. Individuals are not throwing eggs at me on the road,” he says. It’s fairly the other, actually: as this 12 months’s contest has an abundance of LGBTQ+ illustration, he’s made a variety of new buddies – his “LGBTQ+ gang” – which options the UK’s Olly Alexander, Eire’s Bambie Thug, and Switzerland’s Nemo.
“Why would I disguise it if their response is so welcoming,” he questions. Having queer folks round him has made the wild expertise a bit simpler, too. “I simply really feel safer. I don’t really feel awkward in any respect. It simply looks like I’m residence once I’m round them.”
Belt doesn’t wish to be a poster baby for LGBTQ+ illustration in Lithuania. That’s not why he needed to Eurovision: “I don’t even know why I made a decision to do that,” he quips. However he is aware of the facility he has for these queer folks within the nation who don’t see themselves usually within the media, or aren’t in a position to be seen themselves.
“As a lot as I’m most likely gonna set off lots of people with simply my being, I really feel like on the identical time, it’s a large factor for the remainder of us. If I had somebody like that rising up, I really feel like it might have helped me not really feel so sh*t,” he says. “At the very least it would carry up a dialogue about it.”
Silvester Belt will carry out in the course of the first Eurovision semi-final on 7 Could.