Do we like Dami Im?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of charity work and a clean record, but I found little on her views on LGBTQ+ issues or the planet, so it stops short of the top.
Dami Im was born in South Korea and landed in Logan, south of Brisbane, at age nine, with no English. School was rough: some kids were kind, others weren't, and music was her way in. A school-assembly piano performance won her classmates' respect.
The climb from there is a proper one. She graduated from the University of Queensland's Conservatorium in 2009, won The X Factor in 2013, then came second at Eurovision 2016 with Sound of Silence, which was Australia's best result at the time. Not bad for the girl who just wanted people to say her name right.
The grit is in how she's handled the abuse aimed at her. She's recalled online comments telling her to go back to where she came from, including one that assumed she was Chinese, and she answered that she isn't. She's said she hopes her story inspires other migrants.
On the harm test, the cupboard is bare in a good way. Searches turned up no anti-LGBTQ+ remarks, no conspiracy rabbit holes and no dodgy co-stars or projects. The flip side is that she hasn't said much publicly about LGBTQ+ rights or climate either, so this is a pass on the record, not a rainbow-flag endorsement.
The recent news is gentle. She was named Australia's Eurovision spokesperson in May 2026, which means she reads out the country's points, and she had already backed Delta Goodrem for the gig. Nothing scandalous has landed on her lately.
The good stuff is the real kind. In 2016 she turned her Eurovision fame towards child poverty and planned a trip to visit her sponsor child in Uganda. Since 2023 she's been an ambassador for Destiny Rescue, which works to rescue children from sex trafficking, saying her voice and profile can help shine the spotlight on it. In 2025 Griffith University gave her an honorary doctorate for service to the arts.