Late Tuesday evening, some not so good news emerged from Italy. Mahmood — the country’s Eurovision 2019 representative — is bedridden with a high fever and serious throat infection.
However, the “Soldi” singer, who recently topped the Italian FIMI Singles Chart for a second time with his new single “Calipso”, is still expected to fulfil his rehearsal commitments in Tel Aviv.
A recent unseasonal bout of cold weather in Italy, which resulted in abundant snowfall, may be to blame for his ailments.
As a precautionary measure, Il Resto del Carlino reports that all the singer’s scheduled commitments for today, 8th May, have been cancelled.
Mahmood was due to be a special guest at the Alessandro Troiani Memorial, a charity event at the Ventidio Basso Theatre in Ascoli.
He wouldn’t have been the only guest though. The stage will also welcome “Soldi” co-writer Dario Dardust Faini and red-haired singer Noemi, a veteran of the Sanremo Music Festival.
The newspaper writes that “the situation is so delicate that the departure of Mahmood for Tel Aviv (…) has been postponed to give the artist the chance to recover”.
The news spread online in no time at all, alarming all fans of the Italian representative. Thankfully, a more reassuring update came from the Italian website Eurofestival News:
“Based on the information that we have, we can confirm that the singer will leave regularly for Israel on Thursday 9 May, as planned, and will perform on the stage of the Expo Tel Aviv for the first rehearsal, scheduled for Friday 10 May at 5.20 pm CET.”