Michael Rice for the United Kingdom 2019
🇬🇧United Kingdom 2019 / “Bigger Than Us”
Photograph by the BBC and Joe Giacomet
Grand Final | 26th Place | 11 points | Prequalification
Michael Rice has been chosen to represent the United Kingdom with “Bigger Than Us” at Tel Aviv 2019 after winning Eurovision: You Decide. Rice had previously participated in The X Factor UK in 2011 and the British reality music competition series All Together Now in 2018 before being one of six artists chosen to take part in the 2019 edition of Eurovision: You Decide.
“Bigger Than Us” is about the idea there’s a grander meaning and essence at work than just the connection between two people. For Rice personally, he cites his families struggles and his father’s drug addiction, and that despite the rocky early years, his father was immensely proud of his musical prowess. His father passed away years ago, but when Rice won All Together Now he couldn’t help but wonder how he might feel seeing him today. The song, notably, was penned by another competing contestant at Eurovision this year, Sweden’s John Lundvik.
Rice was born in 1997, in the fall after the United Kingdom’s last win at Eurovision, and grew up in Hartlepool, where his grandmother introduced him to singing through street performances. Despite a rough childhood, including the death of his father, Rice found his way to the eleventh season of The X-Factor UK in 2011. However, he was eliminated in the early stages of the competition, and it wasn’t until a cover of a Years & Years song went viral on YouTube in 2015 that Rice attracted the attention of the BBC. He was asked to compete in the inaugural season of All Together Now in 2018, where he came out victorious. After he put his winning earnings to his mother’s crepe shop, Rice was shortly petitioned by the BBC to compete at Eurovision: You Decide. In addition to competing at Tel Aviv 2019, Rice is also currently working on his debut EP.