Franka Batelić

Franka Batelić is a Croatian singer and songwriter, born on 7 June 1992 in Rijeka. She has sung since she was three, first as a soloist with the Minicantanti choir, winning awards twice at the children's festival Voci nostre and at Dorica in Osijek, and later in the parish choir of St Andrew in Rabac. She finished primary music school in piano, also plays the guitar her father taught her, later spent three semesters at Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship, and studied law in Zagreb.

Her career really began in December 2007, when she won the first season of the TV talent show Showtime and signed with Hit Records; her winner's single was "Ovaj dan". In May 2008 "Ruža u kamenu", by Miro Buljan, Boris Đurđević and Neno Ninčević, won the audience award at the Croatian Radio Festival in Opatija, and the song went on to win the OGAE Song Contest among Eurovision fan clubs. At Dora 2009 she sang "Pjesma za kraj", which reached number two on the HR Top 20, and in July 2009 "Možda volim te" gave her a first number one. Later that year she won the fourth season of Ples sa zvijezdama with Ištvan Varga, and she returned to Dora with "Na tvojim rukama".

In 2011 the dance track "On Fire" was a success and appeared on many house and dance compilations, and in April 2013 she opened for Beyoncé at the Arena Zagreb. After a break for her studies she came back in late 2017 with "S tobom", dedicated to her late father, and in 2018 she represented Croatia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon with "Crazy", but did not qualify from the first semi-final.

Her debut album, S tobom, came out in December 2018. "Sve dok sanjaš" (2019) became her first chart-topper on the HR Top 40 and won the Cesarica audience award for song of the year. She has also sung Disney roles in Croatian, among them Rapunzel in Tangled, Jasmine in Aladdin and Asha in Wish. Franka Batelić has been married to the footballer Vedran Ćorluka since July 2018, and they have two children.