Eurovision star Miriana Conte has opened up on the controversy surrounding her song after she was forced to change the name from ‘Kant’ to ‘Serving’. The singer-songwriter, 24, will take to the stage of th arena St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland tonight (May 15) in the second semi-final of the annual contest. She will perform her song Serving and is among the acts hoping to make it through to the grand final on Saturday (May 17).

Kant, as it was then known, was selected as Malta’s entry in the country’s national final back in February, which was won by Miriana. The song, which shared its title with a Maltese word for ‘singing’ attracted much attention earlier this year, including over the lyric “serving kant” in the chorus.

It was considered a reference to “serving c**t”, which can be used to represent someone expressing themselves in a powerful or bold way, and Miriana’s pronunciation drew comparisons to “c**t” too.

The singer-songwriter also found herself banned from the BBC over the song’s title despite not technically swearing in the single. Amid controversy over the song’s title, she shared in March that she had been urged to change the lyrics by organisers and ended up removing the word “Kant”.

Now, the musician has opened up about the backlash she faced from her explosive hit single. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, the 24-year-old explained how she felt about the impromptu changes.

She told us: “I mean, there’s a lot of words which phonetically mean different things in different languages. It turns out that this one was one of them. It means singing in my language. Changing the name doesn’t take away the essence of the song, and now it’s serving serving,” she smiled.

Back in February, a source told The Sun that the single caused “a few headaches” for the BBC and the Eurovision organisers. They told the outlet: “It’s not a great situation – it’s causing a few headaches. On the face of it there’s nothing wrong with the song but the way it’s sung could cause offence and there’s bound to be complaints.”

Following the intial controversy Miriana admitted on Instagram the EBU was forcing her to change her song’s lyrics. She told her loyal fanbase: “Currently filming the official ‘KANT’ music video, literally living my best life. We’ve just been notified that @ebu_hq has decided against using the Maltese word ‘Kant’ in our entry in the Eurovision Song Contest,” she wrote.

“While I’m shocked and disappointed, especially since we have less than a week to submit the song, I promise you this: the show will go on – Diva NOT down.”

Despite the backlash over her 2025 entry, Miriana insisted still has faith in her track in the annual music competition. She told us: “I have got a lot of special things planned [for my performance], but the one thing that remains is me being bold and unapologetically me.

“I think every song is special in its own way but what I can say about my song is I feel that it it makes you embrace who you are as a person, no matter what you say.”

The singer admits she has been dreaming about performing at Eurovision since she was one and is a self-confessed Eurovision superfan who is excited for the experience. She gushed: “I think any singer, dancer, performer dreams of performing in front of such a big crowd, so I’m ready to take that stage.”

The Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Basel, Switzerland, continues tonight with the second semi-final from 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK. This year’s grand final will air at the same time on Saturday night.