Rina Sawayama: is pop star UK’s Eurovision Song Contest 2023 entrant - what songs is she known for?

Rina Sawayama, 32, is a Japanese–British pop singer, songwriter, actress and model. She was born in Niigata, Japan and came to London with her parents when she was five years old.

This month rumours have abounded that she will follow in the footsteps of Sam Ryder, representing the UK at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool. Ryder came second place last year to Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra.

She released her debut studio album, Sawayama, in 2020, her second album, Hold the Girl, came out last September. She has modelled for several fashion brands and has recently turned to acting.

She featured in two episodes of the Idris Elba Netflix comedy series Turp Up Charlie, and will make her film debut, playing Akira in John Wick: Chapter 4 which will be released next year.

Her major songs include This Hell, XS, Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys), Frankenstein, and Charlie XCX’s Beg For You, which she featured on.

Is Rina Sawayama representing the UK at Eurovision?

Swayama shared a video on her TikTok channel which many fans believe is a hint that she will take part in Eurovision this year. In the video, she is dancing to Euphoria, by Swedish singer Loreen - this was the winning song at the 2012 contest.

Previous clues that she may be taking part included the fact that there is a three-month break in her tour from March to Early June this year, leaving plenty of time for her to prepare for the contest. Additionally, Luke Baldwin, a Directive Board member for Eurovision, followed the singer on Instagram.

She shared the video, in which she is wearing a puffy green dress and twirling excitedly to her 275,000 TikTok followers. She captioned the video ‘the last quality street in the box and TikTok’s audio listing tool showed the song as Euphoria (Eurovision Mix). The video, shared on 2 February has een liked more than 50,000 times and received hundreds of comments.

One TikTok user commented: ‘If you are doing Eurovision I am going to collapse’. Another asked: ‘So are you doing Eurovision or not cause I live near Liverpool and I need to know whether to go or not x’. A third commented: ‘She is either making fun of us for thinking she’s on Eurovision or just teasing us.’

What song will Rina Sawayama sing at Eurovision?

Rina Sawayama has not yet been officially confirmed as the UK’s Eurovision entrant - however, if she does take part in the contest, fans have speculated about the song that she will perform.

Many believe she will sing Frankenstein from her Hold the Girl album - she wrote the song with Lauren Aquilina and its producer Paul Epworth. Sawayama said the song is about “Someone putting me back on my feet when I’m broken. It’s a very human and realistic experience, of rebuilding, of creating a new me."

The track has been played nearly 7 million times on Spotify, and the music video been watched nearly 1 million times on YouTube.