UMK 2017Act "Emma" Bravely Opens Up Over Depression After UMK Performance

November 23rd 2016, an Finnish act solely named as "Emma" was announced as one of the ten luckily finalists to compete in UMK 2017 - Finland's national selection format for Eurovision with her song "Circle Of Light" within minutes of her announcement and the song behind released ro everyone to hear, her unique blend of power folk instrumentation and energising percussion and vocal prowess made her an immediate front runner to be in Kyiv come May. However that did not happen.

For the first time since the national final, which was held back in January, Emma has bravely opened up about her UMK performance and what followed, she openly admits since the performance she has battled and coped with depression, which has been going on for six months now.

She starts up explaining she had the best time being involved with UMK and that her depression did not happen because she was a part of UMK, but what followed in the months after.

For those who do not know, Emma's performance went swimmingly in the first minute, a few nervous vocals, but that was expected right? She was the heavy favourite and opened the show, however is issues began in the final line of the first chorus, where she went ahead of the music and her backing vocals, clearly shaken by the mistake the second verse continued to be ahead of the backing vocalists, she recovered however for the second pre-chorus, but then disaster struck when her prop, a flaming torch she jousted towards two cameras went out in her hand, this all culminated in her vocals not being at their fullest and finally finished third on the night.

Emma openly admits she would've rather finished dead last with no technical problems like on the night than what actually happened that evening, she said once she felt she was drowning on stage during the performance and that she broke down off stage after the performance.

She admitted her sadness and depression came down to two focal points, the first being she had worked so hard to get that position in her career and the music industry and how she was made promises, such as records deals and new music and how they all vanished and broke down after UMK, the second being she feels the world sees her, in her words "a bad performer & doesn't deserve anything" based on that one performance, and how she has seen comments of people saying how bad she is.

She followed on adressing a question she had faced the most since the competition ended - will she compete in UMK 2018, sadly for Circle Of Light fans, it doesn't look positive. She submitted her name under the stipulation of a singer without a song, on the basis a entry submitted could be paired up with her, but with the submission window closing last month and not hearing back, it is looking like Emma will not be returning in 2018.

“I haven’t heard from anyone, so right now I am 100% sure that unfortunately I won’t be participating this year, even though this is still one of my biggest dreams to represent Finland. This year will not be my year, but I think it will be another year, another time, another place. Right now I am climbing my way back up again"

She ends however on a positive note saying she is determined however to fulfill her dream of represented Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest and thanked her fans for their continued love and support over the last six months.

We personally would love to see Emma try again and achieve her dream, and salute and stand by her sharing her thoughts and feelings in this video, which you can see below. Would you like to see Emma return to UMK? Let us know!