RTE Eurovision boss has ‘no idea what she’s talking about’ after star takes swipe but would love to represent Ireland

RTE Eurovision boss Michael Kealy has clashed with country music star CMAT over claims the station call the shots over what acts sing and wear in the pop contest.

The TV producer has claimed the Dubliner would be a brilliant choice to represent us in Sweden next May.

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Country music star CMAT is not a fan of the Eurosong process

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RTE Eurovision boss Michael Kealy disputed the star’s claims

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Ryan O’Shaughnessy was critical of the process after Eurovision 2023Credit: Splash News

But CMAT, aka Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, said she would “absolutely need full creative control”.

She added: “I would love to do Eurovision but to be honest I don’t like the way that Ireland structures, funds and controls the Eurosong.”

And CMAT, 27, whose 2022 debut album If My Wife New I’d Be Dead went straight to No1 in ­Ireland, continued: “Not looking like that will happen anytime soon, but hopefully in the future.”

However, these claims have been denied by our Eurovision Head of Delegation Michael.

He told the Eirevision podcast: “I think CMAT is one of the most exciting artists we have produced in the last few years.

“I’d be delighted to talk to her and I think she’d be great at Eurovision but I don’t know where she is coming from with this.

“I really don’t know what she is talking about.”

The RTE man has been in charge of finding Irish Eurovision acts for the past decade. And he denied exerting any control over the entrants or what they sing.

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Michael said: “Ask anybody in the last ten years: Have I taken their act or ruined it by making them do anything they didn’t want to do? And you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody to say that.

“What I try to do is facilitate them so they can project themselves in the best possible way.”

The RTE boss also distanced himself from claims made by previous Irish entry Ryan O’Shaughnessy, who qualified for the Eurovision final in 2018 with song Together, that a creative director had wanted him to emerge on stage from an exploding cake.

Michael said: “I don’t know what he was talking about either.

“I rang him after that and asked ‘what are you talking about’.

“At the time, Ryan wanted to be the creative director of his own thing but I suggested he might like to work with a creative director so they had a conversation, I was party to… I think what happened, in any creative process, you throw all sorts of creative ideas at the start.

PART OF THE PROCESS

“That’s part of the creative process. And then you dismiss them, and I suspect that’s what happened here.

“You throw all the crazy ideas out at a meeting and then somewhere among them is a really good idea.

“It wasn’t like someone seriously suggested we are going to get a big cake and force Ryan to emerge from this cake on stage.”

While Ryan came 16th in the Grand Final, the 2022 Irish entry failed to make it out of the semi-finals.

But the RTE boss reckons entering Eurovision hadn’t done their careers any harm.

Michael said: “The people that like you are still going to like you. The the people that hate you, are still going hate you.

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“Acts entering only have fans to win. Wild Youth haven’t stopped touring since they competed in Liverpool.

“I don’t believe there is a downside to anyone’s brand entering Eurovision.”

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CMAT has been tipped as a brilliant choice to represent IrelandCredit: Getty Images – Getty