In a recent development, RTCG has announced that NeonoeN, the winner of this year’s Montesong festival, has withdrawn from representing Montenegro at Eurovision 2025 in Basel.
The reasons behind NeonoeN’s withdrawal point to a breach of Montesong’s rules. Reports suggest their song was performed publicly before the competition’s official guideline date, which would violate the the rules ensuring all entries have not been performed prior to September 1 of the year preceding the Eurovision 2025 season.
The decision has sparked some discussion among fans, with many wondering who will now carry the Montenegrin flag in Basel. Runner-up Nina Žižić has been widely mentioned as a potential replacement, but RTCG has yet to confirm whether the second-place finisher will step up or if another solution will be found.
NeonoeN has posted a statement in regards to their withdrawal, and you can read it here in its entirety:
Dear all,
In the best public interest, with the desire to end the uncertainty and once again contribute to the music that brought us here in the first place, we inform you that we are voluntarily withdrawing from participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. RTCG, in accordance with the regulations, will select another representative, and we will be the first to wish them good luck and offer our full support.
Winning Montesong brought us publicity of a kind and scale that we neither chose nor could control. We emphasize, and the facts confirm, that performing a working version of the song live did not jeopardize the Montesong festival process nor could it have influenced its final outcome and our placement. It is also a fact that there have been many similar cases where the EBU has always decided that such songs can participate (one even won Eurovision), as they did not have a competitive advantage over the others, which is clear to everyone. However, we simply do not want to be part of any stories beyond music, nor do we want to promote our original work in such a manner.
Eurovision was never a goal in itself for us. Expanding the scope of our musical activities – that certainly was!
The Montesong festival, organized by the Association of Performing Artists, brought 16 new songs, and that is its greatest value. We want to thank RTCG’s management for their good intentions and their offer to explore other options. We believe they will understand our decision to withdraw from Eurovision, and we thank them for that as well.
A special and huge thank you to our fellow musicians, lovers of good music, friends, acquaintances, journalists, and the general public from Montenegro and abroad, who have given us strength in recent days. Our families have lived through all the brilliance and despair of this process with us, and now it’s time to repay them and dedicate ourselves to them in the right way.
CLICKBAIT continues to live on as a music single, but we fear it also lives on as a modern social phenomenon.
Once again, thank you to everyone. Now, let’s all support Montenegro at Eurovision!
Source: RTCG
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