Ukraine prankster ‘doesn’t regret’ mooning Eurovision final

UKRAINE: A Ukrainian prankster told a court on Monday (May 15) that he didn’t regret mooning the audience during the live broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest final in Kiev.

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By AFP

Thursday 18 May 2017, 11:42AM

Ukrainian prankster Vitaliy Sediuk has a long history of high-profile stunts before his Eurovision moon, such as attaching himself to Bradley Cooper’s legs at a Hollywood awards show in 2014. Photo: Ethan Miller/AFP

Vitaliy Sediuk, 28, jumped onto the stage with an Australian flag wrapped around his shoulders, dropped his trousers and wiggled his bare bottom at the audience during last Saturday night’s (May 13) performance by last year’s winner of the contest, Ukrainian singer Jamala.

“I don’t regret it,” said Sediuk, who has been known to ambush celebrities.

“I don’t have anything against Eurovision. This time I just wanted to do something that would be remembered.”

The Kiev court on Monday ordered the confiscation of Sediuk’s travel documents and imposed restrictions on his movements as an investigation into the incident continues.

A security guard tackled Sediuk off the stage in last Saturday night’s incident, and the prankster later resisted arrest by police and was placed in detention for 72 hours, interior minister Arsen Avakov said on Sunday (May 14).

Avakov said Sediuk’s offence fell under legislation against hooliganism, which in Ukraine can carry up to five years in prison.

“The country’s embarrassment can practice his ‘hobby’ in a prison cell at a temporary detention centre,” Avakov wrote on Sunday on his Facebook page.

The contest’s organising committee in Ukraine slammed Sediuk’s behaviour as “inadmissible” and assured that the “highest level of security” had been observed during the final.

“We are outraged and in no way support such provocations”, Pavlo Grytsak, the executive producer of this year’s contest, said in a statement.

“The offender should be held responsible for what he did.”

In September, Sediuk tried to kiss the bottom of US reality TV star Kim Kardashian as she was walking into a Paris restaurant. Her bodyguard pinned him to the ground before he managed to do so.

Portuguese crooner Salvador Sobral, who suffers from a serious heart condition, triumphed in this year’s edition of Eurovision with the melancholy ballad “Amar Pelos Dois”.

Ukraine was hosting Eurovision amid an ongoing armed conflict with pro-Russian rebels in the country’s industrial east that has now killed more than 10,000.