BIOGRAPHY
Conchita Wurst (also mononymously known as Conchita) was born as Thomas Neuwirth in 1988 in Gmunden, Austria. At the age of 14 Neuwirth moved to Graz to do his matura exam with a focus on fashion, before embarking on a singing career through the 2007 casting show "Starmania" where he finishing in second place (Nadine Beiler placed first).
In 2011, Tom Neuwirth began appearing as Conchita Wurst, a bearded women. Conchita's first appearance was on ORF's show "Die große Chance" in 2011, where she achieved 6th place. One year later, she competed in the Austrian Preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 and came very close second. Wurst then appeared in the ORF show "The Hardest Jobs of Austria", working in a fish processing plant, and in "Wild Girls", in which a group of candidates had to survive in the deserts of Namibia together with native tribes.
In 2014 Conchita Wurst was selected to represent Austria at the Eurovision Song Contest. She won the competition with 290 points. It brought her international attention and established her as a gay icon, resulting in invitations to perform at various pride parades, the European Parliament and the United Nations Office in Vienna.
