LISBON, Portugal (AP) — The Latest on the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest (all times local):

Netta Barzilai has won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest for Israel with her song "Toy."

Barzilai, who was the favorite to win ahead of Saturday's Grand Final, saw off competition from 42 other countries' performers to claim the music extravaganza's annual crown at a show in Lisbon, Portugal.

There was a strong field of contestants at this year's event, which largely shed its traditional hallmarks of glitz and glitter in favor of a more restrained and tasteful tone.

The international contest began as a competition between European countries, but its huge popularity has led to the inclusion of Israel and Australia among the performers.

Around 200 million people were expected to tune in to Saturday night's show.

Portugal earned the right to host the event because it won last year with Salvador Sobral's subdued ballad "Amar pelos Dois."

It's a duet for the ages: last year's winner Salvador Sobral is on the Eurovision Song Contest stage singing his successful song alongside Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso.

Sobral, 28, underwent a heart transplant last December and has been limiting his public appearances.

But sharing a stage at the Grand Final with Caetano, 75, on Saturday night was too good to miss. The pair appeared after all 26 countries at the competition had performed at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

Sobral has made no secret of the fact that he prefers quality music over the showy, glossy style favored in past Eurovision events. His ballad "Amar pelos Dois" was a massive success.

The last performance, by Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro of Italy, has concluded at the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Now the tense, drawn-out collating of international votes begins.

In each participating country, a jury and viewers award between one and a maximum 12 points to their favorite songs. Those votes are combined to give each country a single score.

No country can vote for its own contestant. By tradition, each announcement is made in English or French.

Barring technical glitches, the winner of the 2018 event should be crowned before midnight (2300 GMT) at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

A protester has climbed onto the stage in the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest and snatched away the microphone of the United Kingdom's contestant SuRie.

The man got hold of the microphone but was quickly tackled by security and taken away while SuRie stood by.

The British singer kept her composure and carried on her with her song at the event in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday night. She appeared unhurt.

Previous editions of the annual event have also witnessed protesters getting onto the stage.

Contestants from 26 countries are taking part in the hugely popular contest.

The opening of the Grand Final of the 2018 European Song Contest is showcasing Portugal's traditional fado music.

Accompanied by a Portuguese 12-string guitar and drums, fado singers Ana Moura and Mariza — two of the genre's biggest stars — opened the performance on Saturday night.

Beatbombers, a Portuguese DJ duo, then mixed a classic fado song with a techno beat while the contestants representing 26 countries paraded across the stage with their national flags.

More than 10,000 people are in the audience at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, and thousands more are watching the show at a downtown fan zone. An expected 200 million people will tune in across the world.

A lot of thought went into the lineup for the Eurovision Song Contest's Grand Final.

The event's producer, Christer Bjorkman, assesses each of the annual event's 26 performers, figuring out how to create the best show. He juggles ballads with heavy rock, and balances solo acts with bands, to get the tempo right.

He says: "You want to start with good energy. You want to get the party going." Ukrainian entry MELOVIN is first up on Saturday night with his song "Under The Ladder."

One headache for organizers is the turnover time between acts of just 40 seconds. That's not much time to get the props off stage, though the commercial breaks offer more breathing space for the crew.

Lights, music, action! Europe's annual music extravaganza is about to begin, with many people expecting a vintage year.

The Grand Final of the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest will crown one of 26 entries with dreams of following in the footsteps of past winners such as Swedish pop group ABBA and Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias.

The show is taking place at Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday night, starting at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT.) Some 200 million people around the world are expected to be watching.

The event started out as a competition between European countries, but its huge popularity has led to the inclusion of Israel and Australia as contestants.

The country which furnishes the winner organizes the following year's competition. Portugal won last year with Salvador Sobral's subdued ballad "Amar pelos Dois."

The kitsch is conspicuously absent this year and the usual extravagant stage effects are nowhere to be seen. Could the Eurovision Song Contest finally be focusing on the music?

The annual Euro-pop fest has long been the glittery home of outlandish costumes, high-voltage stage effects, forgettable tunes and kitschy acts like last year's dancing gorilla.

But Portugal — which hosting this year's event because its entry, Salvador Sobral, won with a restrained solo ballad last year in Ukraine — is putting on a show with stylish, elegant performances by a strong field of competitors. And it's doing that with a $23.8 million budget that officials say is the most restrained since 2008.

That means the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest is heading to what many predict will be an exceptional year. </s> Portugal won the Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev, Ukraine on Saturday, marking the first time that country has won the contest since 1964. The winning song, "Amar Pelos Dois," had been a favorite through last week's semifinals.

In his acceptance speech, singer Salvador Sobral railed against what he called "disposable music," saying he thought his win was "a victory for music with people who make music that actually means something." After his win, Sobral reprised the winning song as a duet with his sister Luísa, who wrote and composed it.

Sobral first performed his winning ballad bare-bones, stripped of many of the larger-than-life on-stage (and off-stage) treatments associated with Eurovision. There were no backup dancers or pyrotechnics; a stage manager urged audience members in the arena not to cheer as Sobral's quieted performance began. Another relatively rare feature of this year's winner was that Sobral sung in Portuguese, not English, which often hampers a country's shot at winning. The last non-English winner was in 2007, when Serbia's Marija Šerifović won with "Molitva."

Kristian Kostov, of Bulgaria, came in second with "Beautiful Mess."

Eurovision began 1956, with seven countries from continental Europe competing. The contest has since grown to into a mega-production; this year's show featured acts from 42 countries, including non-European countries like Israel and Australia.

The winner is determined through a mix of voting from viewers at home and the opinions of music industry professionals from each represented country, through a complex format intended to maximize the chances for a dramatic reveal of the winner. The competition's rules, like finding the baby in a king cake, have the winning country host the following year's contest.

This year's contest was in danger of being overshadowed by politics, however, despite the rules generally discouraging political overtures.

Ukraine, the winner of last year's competition with a song that referenced the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars during World War II, was viewed as thinly-veiled criticism of the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Ukraine and Russia have publicly sparred over the win since.

Julia Samoylova, intended to be Russia's Eurovision envoy this year, was banned by Ukrainian authorities from entering the country after the host country learned she'd performed in Crimea without permission from Ukrainian authorities following the territory's annexation in 2014. After failing to convince Ukraine to reverse its decision to bar Samoylova, Eurovision organizers gave Russia the option to have her perform remotely or for Russia to choose a different artist, an offer rejected by the Russian channels which selected her. In a statement quoted by the Tass news agency, Russian representatives said the offer "clearly runs counter to the very essence of the event."

The detente wasn't Russia's only Eurovision controversy in recent years; 2014's contest saw the country's entry booed, a reaction to Russia's laws around LGBT rights. That booing continued, to varying degrees, through subsequent years.

Aside from the political imbroglios, Eurovision has for most of its existence been known for its oddball performances — and this year was no exception.

Romania's entry, "Yodel It!" by Illinca and Alex Florea, indeed had, as the title suggests, a fair bit of yodeling, which also featured rap as well as regular singing.

Jacques Houdek's "My Friend," from Croatia, was a duet, fairly common in Eurovision. But here, Houdek's partner was himself, with Houdek dramatically pivoting each time he switched voices. Not to mention the fact that he did all this in two languages — and neither Croatian.

Italy, a favorite to win this year, ended in sixth place. Francesco Gabbani's "Occidentali's Karma" was staged featuring a man in a gorilla costume dancing on the stage — a nod, the singer said, to anthropologist Desmond Morris' book The Naked Ape, which helped inspire the song.

Moldova entered "Hey Mama," by the Sunstroke Project, a band whose exuberant saxophonist became the "Epic Sax Guy" meme when the group first brought it to Eurovision in 2010. Moldova's entry this year was about an overprotective mother-in-law. The band is, no doubt, hoping "Hey Mama" will manage to go viral as well.

For its part, the diminutive Balkan nation of Montenegro brought "Space," by Slavko Kalezić, who donned a mesh shirt, sparkly pants, and danced around the stage waving his unnaturally long pony tail in a circle. He did not make it to the final.

Next year's contest is scheduled for May, in Portugal. </s> KIEV, May 13 (Reuters) - Portugal's Salvador Sobral won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday performing a jazz-style ballad written by his sister, taking the top spot for the first time in the country's history and celebrating with a call to "put emotion back into music".

Along with singers from Italy and Bulgaria, Sobral was a favorite going into the final of the annual song fest, which was hosted in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, and he led the voting throughout the evening. Portugal finished ahead of Bulgaria and Moldova.

A soft-spoken, 27 year-old with a scraggly beard, Sobral won with "Amar Pelos Dois" ("Love For Both of Us"), sung in his native Portuguese. This is the first time Portugal won since it first entered the contest in 1964. After being announced as the winner, Sobral performed the ballad again, this time in duet with his sister Luisa.

"Music is not fireworks, music is feeling," he said after winning. "Let's put emotion back into music."

Asked later at a press conference whether he was now a national hero, he said: "Honestly man I just want to live a peaceful life, if I thought of myself as a national hero it would be a bit weird, you know."

Ukraine hosted the competition while it also fights a war, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away in the east, against Russian-backed separatists.

As is custom in the contest, geopolitics played a part.

Russia boycotted this year's event after Ukraine barred its contestant from entering the country - a symptom of the countries' toxic relations since Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014. Ukraine won last year's Eurovision with its Crimean Tatar entry Jamala.

In a grim reminder of the continued conflict in the east, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cancelled his scheduled appearance at the competition after four civilians were killed in artillery attacks that Kiev blamed on the separatist rebels.

This was the 62nd edition of Eurovision, recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest-running annual TV music competition. It began in 1956 with just seven countries. Ireland have won most often - seven times in all - following by Sweden.

Sobral came into the competition having told local media that he has a heart problem, without giving details. In the run-up he wore a sweatshirt drawing attention to the migrant crisis in Europe, but was asked to stop wearing it by the organizers.

"I hope this can bring a change not only to this contest, but to music in general, and pop music," Sobral said about his win, contrasting his song to music normally pumped out "16 times a day" on radio stations.

Other hopefuls this year included Italian Francesco Gabbani. He was tipped to win with a number, viewed nearly 114 million times on YouTube, that mixes Buddhist imagery with a dancing ape, and that he explained as poking fun at the West's superficial embrace of eastern culture.

Jacques Houdek, known as 'Mr Voice' in Croatia, blended pop and operatic singing styles in the song "My Friend". Romania fielded a duo that combined rap and yodelling.

Ukraine has won the competition twice, including last year with a song about the mass deportation of Tatars from Crimea by Josef Stalin, and its winners performed on Saturday.

Moscow fielded a candidate this year who had violated Ukrainian law by performing in Crimea after the Russian takeover. Kiev accused Moscow of deliberately provoking a row.

Russian singer Yulia Samoylova performed in Crimea again on Tuesday, coinciding with the first Eurovision semi-final.

"I think politics shouldn't intervene," said Liza Ignatieva, a 21-year-old university student in Moscow. "But they broke the rules of the event by not letting her in. Why they invented new rules for Russia only? Yes, we have bad relations but they shouldn't do it to us."

More than 10,000 have been killed in the war between Ukraine and pro-Russian fighters that erupted in 2014 following the Maidan street protests that ousted a pro-Russian president, and the annexation of Crimea.

But during Eurovision at least, Maidan and its surrounding streets have been filled with fans. Big screens and food stalls have been set up in the centre of the capital, and Ukrainian memorabilia put on sale.

"And yes, there is a war going on, but it's further, further out," said Stephanie Novak, a visiting fan from Australia.

"And I think isn't it the whole point of Eurovision to help bring Europe together? What could be better than bringing Europe to a country that is being so affected by war at the moment and to show them what a beautiful country it is." (Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy and Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Axel Bugge in Lisbon and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Editing by Mark Potter and Mary Milliken) </s> Portugal won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time ever early Sunday with a melancholy ballad performed by a singer who suffers from a serious heart condition.

The fado-tinged song "Amar Pelos Dois" was performed by 27-year-old Salvador Sobral, who is awaiting a heart transplant.

It scored a crushing victory, winning top marks both from the televoters and the countries' professional juries.

The black-clad singer took to a small separate stage for his minimalist performance of the song composed by his sister Luisa.

"I don't know about national hero," Portugal's first ever winner told journalists afterwards, adding jokingly "I think the real hero is (Portugese footballer Cristiano) Ronaldo."

"I just wanted to sing a beautiful song as it is -- it's in Portugese," he said of his decision to sing in his native language despite speaking fluent English.

"If I can help to bring some change to music, I will be really joyful."

The ceremony in the capital of ex-Soviet Ukraine began with a glittering light show as the contestants took bows on a stage lit up in the colours of their respective national flags.

Jon Ola Sand, executive supervisor of Eurovision afterwards praised the "amazing set-up" in Ukraine and Sobral's performance.

He said the winner was "bringing music back to the Eurovision Song Contest."

But the glitzy contest was marred by the ongoing fighting with Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko opted not to attend after four civilian deaths.

The annual celebration of catchy europop, ludicrous costumes and glittering divas watched by some 200 million TV viewers was being hosted by Ukraine for the second time.

Bulgaria's big-voiced 17-year-old singer Kristian Kostov came second with a confident performance of "Beautiful Mess".

Third was Moldova's SunStroke Project with a raucous song called "Hey, Mamma" featuring a saxophonist in sunglasses and dancers in wedding dresses and veils.

The latest edition of the contest, that began in 1956 with just seven countries, offered the usual wacky stage acts and cheesy beats.

Italian Francesco Gabbani, who came sixth, invoked Hamlet and Desmond Morris's anthropology book "The Naked Ape" in his song while a gorilla-costumed dancer boogied alongside him.

Romania came seventh with an unlikely combination of yodelling and rap while Azerbaijan's act that came 14th featured a man wearing a horse's head on a stepladder.

Macedonia's contestant Jana Burceska failed to make the final but stole the show during the semi-finals by receiving a televised marriage proposal and screaming "Yes!" as her boyfriend knelt down with a ring.

Britain may be experiencing a post-Brexit vote chill in Europe, but pulled out all the stops with a big ballad performed by Lucie Jones, coming 15th.

Portugal was celebrating their big win Saturday with President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa saying: "When we are very good, we're the best of the best. Congratulations Salvador Sobral."

Ahead of the show, fans streamed into the venue, an exhibition centre outside the city centre, wearing flower garlands and draped in national flags while some waved rainbow gay pride flags.

"It's just so great. Everyone loves it. And you just wanna be here!" shouted Jasmine from Britain, wearing a garland of ribbons and flowers.

For the contest, Kiev's main Kreshchatyk Street was transformed into a Eurovision fan zone with a large stage, beanbags and European Union flags.

Fans with flags painted on their faces snapped selfies, danced, sang and drank beer.

Amid heightened security, some 10,000 police were deployed on the streets, some carrying semi-automatic weapons.

Ukraine was hosting Eurovision amid a continuing armed conflict with pro-Russian separatists in the country's industrial east that has now killed more than 10,000.

A top Ukrainian official said Saturday that "Russian invading forces" had killed four civilians in shelling hours before the contest started.

And that news led President Poroshenko to cancel his appearance at Eurovision.

He wrote on Facebook that "due to the shelling of Avdiivka and the death of peaceful civilians, I took a decision to cancel my presence at the Eurovision final."

Kiev barred Russia's singer Yuliya Samoilova because she had illegally entered Crimea to perform there after Moscow's disputed annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine.

Russia responded by refusing to air the contest and viewers in separatist eastern Ukraine were also unable to watch.

Russia has vowed that Samoilova will compete in 2018, placing Ukraine in a tricky dilemma over whether to participate alongside her.

Ukraine first hosted Eurovision in 2005 when the contest symbolised the country's quest to open up to Europe after the 2004 pro-Western Orange Revolution.

Last year its contestant Jamala won with a song called "1944", referring to the Stalin-era deportation of her Crimean Tatar ethnic group from the Black Sea peninsula.

This year, Ukraine has used the contest to take tentative steps to soften the climate of homophobia prevalent in the ex-Soviet Union.

The authorities handed out a map of gay-friendly venues to fans of the contest with a massive gay following. </s> The Eurovision 2017 song contest has its winner! The annual song competition crowned Salvador Sobral of Portugal for his song “Amar Pelos Dois” (“Love for Both”).

The win is the first for the country; Bulgaria came in second.

The contest, which aired in the U.S. on Logo, has launched the careers of the likes of ABBA, Celine Dion, Julio Iglesias, and Olivia Newton-John since its inception in 1956. A post-war invention that joined 1950s economic treaties aimed at unifying Europe the song contest invites musicians from dozens of countries to submit original songs each year for the chance to compete for the winning title. It is considered the world’s largest non-sporting TV event.

This year’s competition, the 62nd, was held in Ukraine, home country of last year’s winner Jamala. It is tradition for the home country of the year’s previous winner to host the competition, a fact which had Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling urging Europe to vote for the U.K. in this year’s competition to force Britain to host a European celebration in the wake of Brexit and anti-EU sentiment. “Nothing would be funnier. Vote now, Europe” she said, retweeting a tweet that asked, “What would be funnier than making the UK host a huge, expensive celebration of Europe in 2018?”

Eurovision often attracts viewers for those hoping to see something outlandish or surprising (Austrian bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst won in 2014). This year was no exception when a dancing monkey in Italy’s performance nearly stole the show. Within seconds, the bizarre sight was trending on Twitter.

Viewers were similarly confused and bemused by a performance featuring a man wearing a horse’s head.

But viewers quickly moved on from the monkey and the horse to a performance from Ukrainian pop singer and drag singer Verka Serduchka, who came in second place in the competition in 2007. Serduchka, who made a cameo appearance in the Melissa McCarthy film Spy, gave Lady Gaga a run for her money with her headgear and attracted droves of attention on social media. </s> LISBON — Israel's Netta Barzilai won the Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon on Saturday, bringing Israel its fourth victory in the glitzy pageant, watched by over 200 million people around the world, and the right to host the event next year.

"Next time in Jerusalem!" Barzilai, a smiling 25-year-old live looping artist shouted after being named the winner. "I'm so happy! Thank you for accepting differences between us. Thank you for celebrating diversity!"

Wearing a Japanese-style kimono and geisha hairdo, she won with a lively dance mix, singing "I’m Not Your Toy" that has a women's empowerment twist, beating Cypriot entry Eleni Foureira with her fiery Latin pop song "Fuego."

"I believe that authenticity passes through," said Barzilai, who has previously described the message of her song as being about female power and justice, but with a happy, colourful vibe. Her instantly recognisable song began with Barzilai mimicking chicken clucking sounds to loud cheers from fans.

She normally uses a voice looping machine during her live shows, but not in the Eurovision contest where her backing vocalists produced a similar effect.

The Saturday night show had been briefly marred by a protester with a backpack who ran onto the stage and grabbed the microphone from British contestant SuRie. She quickly recomposed and continued to sing her song Storm a few moments later.

The man was arrested by police, said organizers, lamenting the incident.

Cyprus and Israel had been the bookmakers’ favourites going into the 63rd edition of the Eurovision contest, which was hosted in the Portuguese capital.

Israel made its debut in the contest in 1971 and had previously won in 1978, 1979 and 1998.

Other hopefuls with a social message included French duo Madame Monsieur, clad in black, with their song "Mercy", inspired by the story of a Nigerian refugee who gave birth to a baby girl aboard a boat that rescued her and hundreds of other refugees trying to cross to Europe. The baby's name is Mercy.

Lisbon hosted Eurovision for the first time this year after Portugal’s Salvador Sobral won last year’s contest in Ukraine.

The event was broadcast from the 20,000-capacity Altice Arena and projected simultaneously on giant screens on the city’s main Commerce Square overlooking the Tagus river, where thousands of music lovers from all over the world partied and cheered for their countries.

Tens of thousands of visitors further boosted the record tourist numbers in the city, where pop star Madonna fixed her residence last year. Lodging bookings had jumped by up to 80 percent in Eurovision week and officials expected the event publicity to lure more foreigners. </s> Portugal has won the Eurovision song contest for the first time, taking the prize in Ukraine on Saturday night.

Salvador Sobral, performing a jazz-style ballad written by his sister Luisa, was a clear winner in the annual song contest held this year in Kiev and broadcast to an expected global audience of over 200 million people.

The theme of this year’s contest was “celebrate diversity”, although there was widespread criticism on social media of the fact that all three presenters for the show were white men, while there was an overwhelmingly white roster of performers.

The contest also saw a streaker interrupt the programme.

The stage invader, wrapped in an Australian flag, took to the stage during a performance by last year’s winner Jamala, and bared his bottom. He was wrestled off the stage by a security guard as the singer continued to perform.

The contest took place against the backdrop of continued fighting between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists hundreds of kilometres east of Kiev.

Russia boycotted this year’s competition after Ukraine barred its contestant from entering the country - a symptom of the countries’ toxic relations since Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.

Ukraine won last year’s Eurovision with its Crimean Tatar entry Jamala. In a grim reminder of the continued conflict in the east, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cancelled his scheduled appearance at the competition after four civilians were killed in artillery attacks that Kiev blamed on the separatist rebels.

“We were planning together with (my wife) Maryna to attend the final competition and invited our soldiers and people with disabilities to cheer on Ukraine together,” Poroshenko said in a statement.

“But due to the shelling on Avdiyivka and deaths of civilians, I decided to cancel (my attendance).”

It was the 62nd edition of Eurovision, recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest-running annual TV music competition. It began in 1956 with just seven countries. Ireland have won most often - seven times in all - following by Sweden. </s> LISBON (Reuters) - Israel’s Netta Barzilai won the Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon on Saturday, bringing Israel its fourth victory in the glitzy pageant, watched by over 200 million people around the world, and the right to host the event next year.

“Next time in Jerusalem!” Barzilai, a smiling 25-year-old live looping artist shouted after being named the winner. “I’m so happy! Thank you for accepting differences between us. Thank you for celebrating diversity!”

She won with a lively dance mix, singing “I’m Not Your Toy” that has a women’s empowerment twist, beating Cypriot entry Eleni Foureira with her fiery Latin pop song “Fuego”.

Cyprus and Israel had been the bookmakers’ favorites going into the 63rd edition of the Eurovision contest, which was hosted in the Portuguese capital Lisbon. </s> Netta Barzilai is sassy, she’s fun and she can sing — and now the Israeli has won the Eurovision Song Contest with a catchy techno dance tune about women’s empowerment.

The 25-year-old pre-competition favorite beat out competition from 42 other countries’ performers Saturday to claim the music extravaganza’s annual crown at the Grand Final with her song “Toy.”

There was a strong field of contestants at this year’s event in Lisbon, Portugal, which was watched by an estimated 200 million people. The votes coming in live from the capitals of participating countries delivered a tense finale, with Israel gripped in a tight, five-way race with Cyprus, Austria, Sweden and Germany.

Barzilai eventually racked up 529 points, compared with 436 for runner-up Cyprus with “Fuego” by Eleni Foureira, and 342 for third-place Austria with Cesar Sampson’s “Nobody But You.”

The contest largely shed its traditional hallmarks of glitz and glitter in favor of a more restrained and tasteful tone in Lisbon, which was hosting the event because it won last year with Salvador Sobral’s sober and subdued ballad “Amar pelos Dois.”

Sobral last week criticized “Toy” as “horrible music,” insisting the focus should be on the music and not the spectacle. But Barzilai, with her Asian-themed show in red and yellow and her dancers doing funky chicken moves, was unrepentant.

“I’m happy people chose something different. It’s refreshing,” she said. “I believe authenticity (shows) through.” Her win — Israel’s fourth and first since 1998 — means her country hosts next year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

“Next time in Jersualem!” Barzilai shouted to the audience as she picked up her award. The international contest began as a competition between European countries, but its huge popularity has led to the inclusion of Israel and Australia among the performers.

Barzilai, known more usually as Netta, has a witty and endearing personality. Before the Grand Final, her song had already racked up more than 20 million views on Eurovision’s YouTube channel.

In “Toy,” Netta makes funny noises, including a clucking sound like a chicken and barely decipherable words, and uses a looping machine and synthesizer. The lyrics say, “I’m not your toy, You stupid boy, I’ll take you down.”

Portugal came last, with 39 points. Fans caught their breath when a protester ran onto the stage and snatched away the microphone of the United Kingdom’s contestant SuRie.

The man got hold of the microphone but was quickly tackled by security and taken away while SuRie stood by. The British singer kept her composure and picked up her song where she left off.

Previous editions of the annual event have also witnessed protesters getting onto the stage. The event is organized by the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of public service broadcasters. In each participating country, a jury and viewers award between one and a maximum 12 points to their favorite songs. Those votes are combined to give each country a single score.

Past winners have rarely become household names, but they include Swedish pop group ABBA and Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias.

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Salvador Sobral of Portugal wins the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Amar pelos dois. While the country debuted in the 1964 edition of the contest, this marks the first win by a Portuguese entrant.