AfterEllen.com reader Nelfy tipped us off that the Austrian show Starmania – an American Idol-type reality TV show – debuts its fourth season Friday with openly gay Bulgarian pop singer Lucy Diakovska among the show’s three judges.
The show airs on ORF 1, a public access TV channel in Austria that has never prominently featured lesbian or bisexual women in their programming before. (ORF bought the rights to The L Word, but decided against airing it.)
Lucy came out publicly as bisexual several years ago, and had a short relationship with German singer Juliette Schoppmann. She now identifies as a lesbian, and recently broke off her relationship with Bulgarian fashion designer Bojedara Bakalova.
Diakovska rose to fame a few years ago as part of the girl group No Angels, which was formed in 2000 as a result of the reality TV show Popstars, and went on to become one of the biggest-selling German girl bands to date. They disbanded in 2003, and Lucy developed a solo career. No Angels reunited in 2006 and is currently working on their fifth studio album.
Here’s a photo of the group (naturally, the queer woman is the one wearing pants):
Could that photo be any gayer? (And I don’t mean that as a slur.) All that’s keeping this from looking like a poster for a German pride parade is glitter and a dancing queen.
For more info, check out the No Angels MySpace page, and Lucy’s MySpace page.
