James Newman may suffered crushing disappointment at this year’s Eurovision, but it seems his consolation prize wasn’t too bad.
The Embers singer has revealed he received a call of support from none other than Coldplay’s Chris Martin after picking up the dreaded “nul points” at Saturday’s Song Contest.
Speaking to Radio 1′s Newsbeat, James said Chris FaceTimed him on Monday morning to give him some words of encouragement.
“He told me to not take the result personally, said I was amazing and told me to keep my chin up,” James revealed.
“I’ve grown up listening to him, he’s an amazing songwriter so it made me feel so much better.”
In the interview, James also stood by his Eurovision performance, saying he “couldn’t have done any better”.
“The dancers nailed it every time and I think it looked great,” he insisted.
The United Kingdom languished at the bottom of the leaderboard as Italy romped to victory during Saturday’s event.
James scored zero points from the jury vote and from the public vote and was the only entry to do so poorly.
The last time the UK scored “nul points” was in 2003, when Jemini infamously picked up nothing for their rendition of Cry Baby.
James had previously broken his silence on Saturday’s result, insisting he is focusing “on the positives of this amazing experience” instead.
In a lengthy statement on social media, James wrote: “I want to focus on the positives of this amazing experience. I stood on a stage and sang to hundreds of millions of people with a song that I wrote and love.”
He added: “The thing about writing songs is that there is no guarantee that a song you think will connect with people, will connect with an audience.”