A year has passed since Nemo made history at the Eurovision Song Contest – not just as Switzerland’s first winner since Céline Dion in 1988 (and the first to actually be Swiss since the inaugural broadcast in 1956), but also the first non-binary champion in the history of the competition.

Nemo’s competing song, The Code, saw them singing directly about their personal journey of self-acceptance, and how they saw “between the 0s and 1s” to ultimately “find paradise” and “break the code” by choosing to embrace living beyond boundaries.

With their Eurovision performance, the Swiss musician also provided the contest with another of its iconic visuals, belting out their operatic falsetto high notes atop an enormous spinning platform, while sporting a ruffled tulle jacket, skirt and trainers.

All of this proved to be a winning combination for Nemo – not that they realised it at the time.

“I didn’t go into Eurovision thinking I would win it,” they admit to HuffPost UK. “I mean, my goal was to win it. Doing Eurovision, obviously, I think you have to have a certain drive for it, why else would you be here? But I wasn’t expecting it. It’s such a huge event, you don’t know what will happen.”

Nemo shares: “The thing that was both amazing and terrifying was that whole spinning top thing. I fell one time in the rehearsals – the whole spinning top tipped over – and I was like, ‘oh my god, that can just happen any time’.”

However, it wasn’t just the various moving parts of Nemo’s performance that made the lead-up to the Eurovision final both “a bit terrifying, but also very exciting”.

Last year’s contest undoubtedly became the most fraught and divisive in Eurovision history, despite its “United By Music” slogan.

Controversy arose early on when it emerged that Israel would be competing as usual, despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which led to calls for a boycott from some critics.

This chaos only became exacerbated as the final approached, with further backlash ensuing when one act was disqualified a day before the live broadcast, and it later transpired that many complaints (including from Nemo) had been made to Eurovision’s organisers, the European Broadcasting Union, over the conduct of certain delegations in the last stretch of the contest.

“I was never as overwhelmed as I was at Eurovision, with everything that is thrown your way,” Nemo says a year on, revealing there are “so many factors” – both positive and negative – that “define” their experience in Malmö.

“You just find yourself in this massive thing that is way bigger than you, that you can’t really control. The best kind of image to describe it is a whirlwind. You’re just kind of being thrown into it, and you’re trying to float, and not be thrown out in a crazy direction.”

Because of last year’s contestants’ tumultuous time in Malmö, Nemo wound up growing “so much closer” with a handful of their fellow competitors (some of whom they were recently reunited with on the set of their Eurostar music video) than they’d anticipated.

“I felt so connected to the friends that I’ve made there, and I still do,” they said. “It’s crazy to me how people that don’t know each other a few months before can feel like [that]. I still feel like I have really deep bonds with some of the contestants from last year, just because of that shared experience.

“And it’s not an experience you can explain or try to put into words for other people – because it’s really something you have to kind of have felt. I think that’s why it’s so easy to connect with people that went through the same thing. [It wasn’t] good or bad, it’s somewhere in between.”

“It’s the most stressful but also kind of beautiful time of our lives,” they continue. “It feels so fucking confusing in your head, but you’re still so happy when you see those other people, and you’re like, ‘oh my god, I just want to hug you, you understand me because you understand what was going on, we understand each other’.”

Weeks before last year’s contest officially got underway, Nemo was one of nine acts – including the UK’s Olly Alexander and Ireland’s Bambie Thug – who issued a joint statement expressing solidarity with Palestine and calling for an “immediate and lasting ceasefire” in the Middle East, in light of the controversy that was already clouding the competition.

However, despite the calls for a boycott – including from the Palestine-led BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement – Nemo says it was “never” a consideration that they would withdraw from Eurovision, as they felt the message of their song was one that they wanted people to hear.

“It was very much just me realising that this story is important to tell,” they explain. “And if I’m not there to tell it, and to say it, then no one else will.

“That was really my motivation from the start. I don’t think I could have gone through all of that if I was just singing kind of a song that was a cute song and I would feel happy singing it. I needed this sense of direction and purpose, and that was what never made me even question being there.”

In the days before their performance last year, Nemo recalls they were “just trying to really stay focused on that and not let the whole craziness of it get to me, and kind of make the story less important”.

They say: “It was a really important perspective for me to share – and it still is. It’s maybe even more important now, you know, because the way the world has changed in this year is quite crazy to me, especially when it comes to queer people all over the world.”

Because of the message of The Code, Nemo also “never thought of it as bittersweet” that their historic win fell in a year that would otherwise be remembered by Eurovision fans less than positively.

“I’ve been able to create this moment that was very important to me and to what I want to contribute musically and artistically, but also just to the world,” they insist. “I wish we lived in a world that was easier to understand and easier to feel joy in – but that’s not where we are right now, you know?

“And it’s still important to have done that, and it doesn’t take away from that, you know? I don’t think of it in a way like, ‘oh my god, I wish I was in a year where everything was fine and blah blah blah’.”

This sense of purpose, they add, is how they’re feeling ahead of their return to the Eurovision stage in 2025.

“I’m performing another song that I think reflects [similar themes as The Code]. That’s the same reason I’m here and I feel like it’s important that I’m doing this,” they share.

Nemo says these themes have spilled over into their upcoming album, which serves partly as a celebration of queer joy, as well as a lament on the “increasing hostility towards queer people that I’ve felt rising in the last months”.

“A big enabler for that was obviously the US, and Trump’s win last year,” Nemo says, pointing to a “huge contrast” between the joy they feel in the “immediate world around me”, compared to the “actual world that is becoming kind of scary in a lot of ways”.

At the time of our interview, Nemo is back in their native Switzerland, getting ready to begin rehearsals for this final performance as reigning winner of Eurovision in Basel.

Before the current contest got underway, organisers announced a variety of tweaks in light of last year’s competition, including updates to its code of conduct to help boost a “respectful and supportive environment” for everyone involved, as well as “safeguarding artists from unnecessary physical or emotional distress”.

Nemo says that, because they’re not a contestant this year, it’s “hard to tell” how much of a difference these new measures have made.

“I’ve heard [from some] contestants that it’s much better – with the ‘no filming’ spaces, there’s more privacy, I think the mental health aspect is more important this year…” they offer. “But I couldn’t tell you from my experience, I can just tell you what other people have told me. And I haven’t had that many conversations with people, if I’m honest.”

One issue they’re more comfortable discussing is the newly-implemented rules around flags at Eurovision, which have generated a lot of conversation in the last few weeks.

Under these new regulations, Eurovision fans watching the contest in the arena are now permitted to wave any flag they want (as long as it doesn’t violate Swiss laws), including Pride flags and the national flag of Palestine, which was famously forbidden last year.

However, artists in the competition are only allowed to hold the flag of their own country, meaning that, in essence, Pride flags have been forbidden from the Eurovision stage, as well as other “official spaces”.

Pulling no punches, Nemo brands the rules “stupid as fuck”.

“That’s so dumb,” they insist. “I don’t get it. It’s so random sometimes. I just feel like… why? You know what I mean?

“You can’t be known for like the queerest thing in the world, basically, a contest that has been associated with queerness and gay culture for so long, and then be like, ‘oh, we don’t allow Pride flags for the artists’.

“And especially after last year, when I had to smuggle in the non-binary flag, and they told me, ‘you can’t have it on stage’. And then after the contest, the official statement was like, ‘it was never forbidden’. But then this year, they’re pro-actively [forbidding flags on stage]. It’s very strange.

“I don’t know, it feels a bit confusing to me. This rule feels not thought through, at all. I don’t know who decided that, and how they decided it, and what was the reason for it, especially after last year, but it just feels strange.”

They add: “It doesn’t even feel ill-intended. I don’t know, I’m confused by it. I think that’s the only thing I can say. I don’t think it makes sense at all.

“And it’s harming, I feel like, the cause of Eurovision. I don’t know, it’s just weird to me.”

They’re similarly vocal on the subject of Israel, which continues to cast a long shadow over the upcoming contest.

Days before our interview, more than 70 artists and performers from past Eurovision Song Contests issued a joint statement calling for Israel’s expulsion.

Asked if this is something they have an opinion on, Nemo takes a long pause, before responding: “Yeah, I do. I do. I feel, I personally feel like it doesn’t make sense that Israel is a part of this Eurovision. [Or] of Eurovision in general right now.”

They say there are “tons of reasons” they feel this way, adding: “I don’t know how much I want to get into detail, but I would say, I don’t support the fact that Israel is part of Eurovision at the moment.”

Hours after our interview, Nemo supplies an additional statement which reads: “I support the call for Israel’s exclusion from the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel’s actions are fundamentally at odds with the values that Eurovision claims to uphold – peace, unity and respect for human rights.”

Despite all of the controversy surrounding Eurovision in the last few years, Nemo is still looking forward to their return to the competition.

“I think it’s just about creating moments where people have to listen,” they say of their historic Eurovision win as a non-binary person. “A lot of the issues queer people are facing – and a lot of the hate to us queer people at the moment – comes from misunderstanding by other people, and other people not being willing to really listen to queer people.

“They’re being flooded with so much information about queer people that is sometimes not accurate, sometimes very misleading, or sometimes has a narrative that people push purposefully. It’s very rare that people actually listen to queer people, trans people, non-binary people, themselves. Often, people just listen to conversations about [queer people] that are sometimes, that are often not in a form of good will.”

“If you create conversations where queer people are actually listened to, I think that something really beautiful happens,” Nemo continues. “Like, people start to understand – and it sounds really stupid, but this is a human being we’re talking about, you know? Because it is very dehumanising to always be like ‘this thing’, ‘this idea’ in people’s heads, and I think it’s humanising it to an extent.

“And I consider myself very lucky and grateful to have been in a position to be a part of that and contribute maybe a part of something bigger that the world obviously needs right now.”

“Eurovision is such an interesting place, because it’s just a mix of everyone watching this,” they say. “And to be able to have a voice in that is really just what was my main drive and energy last year – but also this year.”

Nemo will perform at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, airing on BBC One on Saturday night. Watch the music video for their new single Casanova below: