San Marino | Guess Who's Back? Serhat To Represent San Marino In Tel Aviv
The San Marino artist rumour mill has been alive with names and people claiming they were the artist to represent the microstate, after they announced an international artist will represent them in Eurovision 2019. But today that was all put to bed 2016 act Serhat will return and represent San Marino once more.
Serhat, full name Ahmet Serhat Hacipaslioglu will represent San Marino once again in 2019, three years after representing them in Stockholm with the known oddly infamous and iconic entry "I Didn't Know" which was later re-released in 2017 with American singer Martha Wash.
"I Didn't Know" was originally released at the same time of Serhat's announcement in 2016, and was instantly panned and criticised, a disco version was released shortly after and following a petition led online by fans the broadcaster listened to the fans and the disco version was in fact sent to Stockholm. Despite its massive share of haters and people panning the song, Serhat still achieved a respectable 12th place in the semi final.
When asked about representing the microstate once more, Serhat revealed he is actually working on his next album when he received the invitation to flag the Sanmarinese flag, he went on say the following:
"San Marino is always in my heart, our friendship lasts forever and Eurovision 2016 was probably one of the best memories of my career."
San Marino RTV has also stated and explained the reason behind their selection of the Turkish star stating:
"When we started to plan the next edition of ESC, we realized that this participation will be our 10th entry. It is a "round" number, an important goal for us, and we thought that we should celebrate our anniversary in Israel, with someone special. We were always in touch with Serhat during the last two years and now after 2016, we are fully empowered and believe that Serhat being full of interesting ideas, is the right choice in the right moment”.e, it didn’t take me long to decide. I am very proud to represent San Marino for the second time”
Relive his 2016 effort below and make sure you let us know your thoughts of his return.
Are you happy he is returning? Would you have rather seen a different name which included Festivali i Kenges 56 act Inis and "Human Ken Doll" Rodrigo Alves?
