Kristian Konstantinov Kostov is a Bulgarian-Russian singer. He was a finalist in season one of The Voice Kids Russia and a runner-up in the fourth season of X FactorBulgaria. He represented Bulgaria in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Beautiful Mess", finishing in 2nd place. In January 2018, Kostov won the EBBA Public Choice award. In January 2019, Kostov was one of seven first batch singers who would be performing in the seventh season of Hunan Television's singing reality-competition Singer.
Personal life
Kostov was born in Moscow to a Kazakh mother and a Bulgarian father. He has an older brother, Daniel, and a younger sister, Sofia. As a child, he learned Bulgarian from his father, while his brother taught him English and his grandfather Kazakh. At the age of five, Kostov began singing and playing the piano, because he was very shy and needed to open up a little. By that time he joined Moscow-based vocal group "Neposedi", which has also gathered Russian duet t.A.T.u. for the first time. Around the same time, he was struggling with muscular dystrophy, which he revealed in a YouTube video in 2017. In 2011, Kostov left Neposedi in order to concentrate on his solo career. In 2012, Kostov represented Bulgaria in the junior version of New Wave, an international contest for young performers of popular music. On 5 May 2019, Kostov witnessed the accident involving Aeroflot Flight 1492 at Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow, Russia.
Kostov participated in the Russian version of The Voice, Golos. He was part of the first season of the kids version of the show where his mentor was Dima Bilan and Bilan chose Kostov to advance to the finals. After his success in Russia, Kristian decided during his visit to Bulgaria to audition for the fourth season of X Factor Bulgaria as he is of Bulgarian origin. Kostov was selected as one of the three "boys" category contestants who would advance to the live shows, and eventually became one of the finalists after avoided elimination during the semi-finals where the judges chose to save him instead of the group A.V.A. During the finals, he performed solo the Lyube's song "Позови меня", made a duet with Vasil Naydenov performing the song "Сбогом, Моя Любов", and Emil Dimitrov's song "Ако си Дал" as his winning song on the second night. When the final results was revealed, it was announced that Christiana Louizu won the series while Kostov settled for the runner-up.
2016–2018: Virginia Records, debut single and Eurovision
On 7 October 2016, his debut single "Ne si za men" was released by Virginia Records. The song was written by Venci Venc' and music and arrangement by Ray Hedges, Nigel Butler and Isaac Evans. The song peaked to number 13 on the Bulgarian Singles Chart. He featured on Pavell & Venci Venc's single "Vdigam Level". The song was released on 25 November 2016, and peaked to number 13 on the Bulgarian Singles Chart. On 13 March 2017, it was announced that he would represent Bulgaria in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, with the song "Beautiful Mess". He is the first singer at Eurovision to have been born in the 2000s decade. He finished second in the contest, which was a new best result for Bulgaria, since the 2016 contest, where Poli Genova finished 4th. On 18 November 2017, he performed during the final of Miss World 2017 in Sanya, China. Later on 17 January, Kostov won an EBBA Award, which is an award for young artist in Europe with most success out of their own country. He also won the Public's Choice Award.
On 4 January 2019, the seventh season of China's long-running singing competition Singer began taping, and Kostov was revealed as the last of the seven first-round performers competing this season, which cast also consist of veteran Chinese singers Liu Huan, Chyi Yu, Yang Kun, Wu Tsing-fong, Zhang Xin, and Escape Plan; all seven singers carries an exemption of participating in the Breakouts and will automatically qualify for the finals if they survived elimination for the entire 11 weeks of performances. At age 18 at the time of the taping, Kostov was also the youngest contestant in Singer 's history, and the first ever contestant born in the 21 century. Kostov was eliminated from the competition on week six, but was however eligible to participate in the Breakout round, to reinstate him from the competition and compete in the finals.
