What you need to know (but are too cool to ask) about Eurovision hopeful Benjamin Ingrosso

 

Here are five things you should know about Sweden's Eurovision contender if you want to be able hold your own as you guzzle crisps and pizza at a Swedish Eurovision party over the weekend. 

 

1. He's been preparing for this a long, long, long time. When he was just nine years old, Ingrosso won Lilla Melodifestivalen, the junior version of the singing competition which selects Sweden's Eurovision entry (watch the video below). When he was 10, he reached number two in the Swedish charts with 'Jag är en astronaut' (the Swedish version of 'I am an Astronaut') about a child pretending they're an astronaut.

 

 

2. His cousin was in Swedish House Mafia. Sebastian Ingrosso, 35, founded the electronic music supergroup in 2008 with fellow DJs Axwell and Steve Angello. The group had a gigantic hit with 'Don't you Worry Child' in 2013, a year after they split up.

 

 

3. His mum competed four times in Melodifestivalen but never made it to Eurovision. Pernilla Wahlgren did get a husband out of it though. In 1993, she married Emilio Ingrosso, Benjamin's dad, one of the two backing dancers for her 1985 entry Piccadilly Circus. The other backing dancer, Emilio's brother Vito, is Sebastian Ingrosso's father. Emilio now runs a pub and a nightclub in Mallorca.

 

 

Pernilla Wahlgren and Emilio Ingrosso were briefly a pop duo. Here they are performing their song Paradise on the Swedish 1980s pop TV program Razzel. They divorced in 2002.

 

 

4. He's a reality TV star. Since 2016, Benjamin has been one of the key characters in Wahlgrens värld, a behind-the-scenes reality TV show about the star-studded domestic life of his mum, now a judge on 'Sweden's Got Talent'. Pernilla, Benjamin and his sister Bianca, a singer, blogger, and 'social media influencer', all live together at the family villa in Lidingö, Stockholm. 

 

 

5. He's the fourth generation of celebrities in his family. Benjamin's great-grandmother and great-grandfather, Nina Scenna and Ivar Wahlgren, were Swedish film stars of the 1940s and 1950s. His grandmother Christina Schollin is a famous actress who played a leading role in Ingmar Bergman's 'Fanny and Alexander' (as did his mother). His grandfather Hans Wahlgren is also a successful actor.

 

And that's before you get to uncles and cousins.

 

Niclas and Linus Wahlgren, Pernilla's brothers, are both actors, with the former competing in Melodifestivalen in 2006. Niclas was married to songwriter and Swedish Idol judge Laila Bagge Wahlgren, who has her own reality TV series 'Lailaland' with son Liam Pitts.

 

We could go on...