THOMAS “TOM” NEUWIRTH born; Better known as the drag persona CONCHITA WURST, is an Austrian singer. Wurst represented Austria and won the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copehagen, Denmark. The singer uses female pronouns for self description when in the role of Wurst

In 2007, Neuwirth reached the final of the 2007 Austrian casting show Starmania and returned to television in 2011 in drag as the character “Conchita Wurst,” a persona he created in response to earlier experiences, and said, “This is about an important message, it’s call for tolerance for everything that seems different.”

While in German, Wurst means ‘sausage,’ the performer compares the choice of last name to the common German expression ‘Das ist mir doch alles Wurst,’ which translates as ‘it’s all the same to me,’ and ‘I don’t care,’ stating that the name emerged from the first meaning of the expression and added, “It doesn’t really matter where one comes from, and what one looks like.” In the same interview the performer stated that the first name was from a Cuban friend.

The character Conchita Wurst, has participated in the ORF production The Hardest Jobs of Austria, working in a fish factory, and in Wild Girls, in which a group of candidates had to survive in the deserts of Namibia together with native tribes.

Neuwirth graduated from the Graz School of Fashion in 2011, and has lived in various locations in Vienna.