James Newman might have had a disappointing result at this year’s Eurovision, but he is not about to let Piers Morgan get him down.
The UK entrant had a zinger for the former Good Morning Britain presenter, after he branded James and his performance at Saturday’s Song Contest “crap”.
The singer scored the dreaded “nul points” for his song Embers at the weekend, marking only the second time ever the UK has scored nothing.
Following the result, Piers tweeted: “The UK didn’t get ‘nul points’ in the Eurovision Song Contest because of some sinister revenge for Brexit. We got ‘nul points’ because we had a crap song, performed by a crap singer who gave a crap performance. End.”
However, James refused to take the criticism lying down, and hit back at Piers on Twitter.
Referencing the presenter’s infamous walk-out on Good Morning Britain after he was criticised by colleague Alex Beresford for his repeated attacks on Meghan Markle, James said: “Hey Piers sorry you didn’t like the song, at least I didn’t storm out!”
Of course, Piers insisted on having the last word, responding: “Might have spared us all a lot of pain if you had....” adding a laughing emoji.
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.”
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.