Linda Lampenius lost all her money to her sex offender ex-manager – a former pal of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Jeffrey Epstein – but she hopes to triumph at Eurovision
When it comes to who might win the Eurovision Song Contest tonight (Saturday), all eyes are on Finland. The country is being represented by Finnish duo Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen, with their song Liekinheitin, or Flamethrower, and has hit the headlines for being the bookies’ favourites in the competition.
Linda and Pete are also being talked about as Linda has been granted a rare exception to Eurovision rules, allowing her to perform live in the final, playing her classical violin. Successful rehearsals proved the sound quality met strict broadcast standards.
But Linda also has something else to prove. As the 56 year old has revealed how victory at the competition would represent “the ultimate revenge” against her ex-manager Peter Nygard, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who is presently serving an 11-year prison term for four counts of sexual assault.
She already regards her participation in the event as vindication following the “years of hell” she suffered under Nygard, a multi-millionaire fashion tycoon described as a “sexual predator” by the judge during his 2023 trial.
Linda recently shared footage on social media showing herself being interviewed by the BBC and NBC while in London in 1997, following her collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Linda wrote: “At this point I didn’t know that I had signed my management deal with the devil, Peter Nygard, who raped young girls and was friends with Epstein and Prince Andrew. Peter Nygard made me go through hell, for many, many years ahead. But now he’s in jail in Canada and I’m going to Vienna with Pete. I didn’t give up and I won this battle!”
Asked how victory in Vienna would feel, she said: “It’s my revenge, my middle finger to Nygard. That’s why I really want to – winning Eurovision would be the ultimate.”
Her battle with Nygard, 84, began in 1998 when she wrote a magazine article warning Finnish girls to stay away from him, claiming he was a sexual predator. Describing him as “a human slimeball” she claimed that he attacked women and girls and hosted parties full of naked females “for entertainment”. In interviews at the time, she said she needed a manager with her whenever she was around Nygard “for protection”.
One of Nygard’s many homes was a beach house in the Bahamas where he liked to host the rich and famous – including the then Prince Andrew who visited with his wife Sarah Ferguson and their daughters Beatrice and Eugenie in 2000, although there is no suggestion they knew of his alleged criminality at the time.
The house, called Nygard Cay, is where young women and girls as young as 14 are said to have been lured. Nygard was accused in a New York court of plying girls with booze and drugs before they were raped and sexually assaulted between 2008 and 2015. Three of the claimants were 14 years old at the time and three others were 15 years old.
But following Linda’s comments in the media about Nygard prior to his conviction, he successfully sued her for defamation seeking around £30m in damages.
When she could not afford to continue the legal battle because of a lack of funds, she was forced to make a grovelling public apology by taking out a full-page newspaper ad in a Finnish newspaper. Speaking to Swedish press recently about what had happened, she explained: “I became the villain. I was the one who told women to beware of him. I had to pretend that I had lied about him. After that, Finns hated me for 20 years.”
But last year Linda persuaded the newspaper to repay her for the ad she was made to pay for, costing around £8,000. She has said that his actions ruined not only her life for 20 years, but also had a detrimental affect on her parents.
In 2020, Finnish-born Nygard, who is named in the Epstein files, was arrested after five women filed claims of sexual assault in Canada and in 2023 he was found guilty on four of the five counts, which took place between the late 1980s to the mid 2000s.
He is currently serving an 11-year sentence. During his six-week trial, the court heard graphic and disturbing testimonies from all five women, four of whom said they were in their 20s when they were assaulted while one complainant said she was 16. The judge in the case called him a “sexual predator” who used his wealth and power to take advantage of women.
A separate class-action lawsuit has also been filed against him by 57 women in the US where authorities claim he engaged in a “decades-long pattern of criminal conduct” involving at least a dozen victims. This will be dealt with once his criminal cases in Canada are completed.
At Eurovision, Finland has come last 11 times and won just once, when rock act Lordi unexpectedly triumphed in 2006 – dressed in monster costumes – with their song Hard Rock Hallelujah.
This time around, their song Liekinheitin is about a destructive romantic relationship. Pete, 36, who rose to fame through Finnish TV series Idols in 2008, and had never met Linda before embarking on their Eurovision mission. She said: “I told the producer that my dream collab would be Pete Parkkonen. The producer turned out to know Pete. One phone call and 24 hours later we were in the studio and the rest is history.”
Watch the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 8pm on Saturday, 16 May.
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