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"Ask anything you want about the operation"
"Please, ask 10,000 questions about the sex-change operation, as long as we talk about the music afterwards!" -- It is safe to say that Eurovision winner Dana International is an open person
May 30, 1998
To make this clear once and for all: Dana International is a dark haired beauty from Israel without a trace of the man she once was. And she takes, or at least seems to take, all the fuss around her operation with crushing calm.
When Dana heard that she had won the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest, she became very happy, to use an understatement. "I screamed! I have never felt like that in my whole life. I was 100% happy." Dana has, since she was a little boy, been an Eurovision fan. "I have always dreamed about being in the contest. And then to win."
Q: You didn't expect that?
A: "Absolutely not. I had planned to travel to the USA on a one-month vacation. Now that became a tour of Europe with a new land every day and hundreds of interviews. But I'm not complaining."
Dana, born as Yaron, believes herself to be a very lucky person. "I have a family that has supported me in everything. Of course, they had to get used to a few things, but they never turned their backs to me. A family whose members love each other doesn't do such things."
Q: And your father never forgets himself and calls you 'my son'?
A: "Never, he sees a women, his daughter."
Everything about Dana International is feminine, including her voice.
Q: ...How much did your voice change after the operation?
A: "I have always had a women's voice, and, actually, no operation can change that. When I was a boy, my voice was so feminine that my teachers believed they had heard a girl if I talked when they had their backs to the class. One of the teachers even called me 'my girl'!"
Four bodyguards protect Dana while she is in Oslo, and Aftenposten's reporters were asked to show ID cards before we were allowed to see the diva . "But I haven't been bothered by threats in Europe. In the Arab countries they have banned me and there they threaten me. They believe that I corrupt the youth, that I am a Mossad agent and I don't know what. But I have sold 20 million records in the exact same countries -- without making a single dollar. It's all illegal recordings."
"Diva", the Eurovision winner song, is quite different than other songs which Dana has recorded. "My albums are very varied. They include music for those who want to dance, music for grandpa and ethnic music with Arabic overtones. I hope I can come here soon to give a concert. That will be a great show!"
by Lars Keilhau, Aftenposten??
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