Jelena Karleuša

Jelena Karleuša is a Serbian pop singer, born on 17 August 1978 in Belgrade. Her mother, the journalist and radio host Divna Karleuša (born Tomažič), was born in Ptuj, Slovenia, which is also why Jelena holds a Slovenian passport. Over three decades her music has moved between pop-folk, dance-pop and electropop.

She made her first record at sixteen: Ogledalce came out on 24 April 1995 on Diskos, with the singer Dragana Mirković helping to finance it. Ženite se, momci followed in 1996 on PGP-RTS, then Veštice, vile (1997) and Jelena (1998) on Zabava Miliona, the albums on which she began working with the lyricist Marina Tucaković. Gili, gili, released in December 1999, was her only album for Grand Production and was named album of the year at the Oskar popularnosti awards. After Za svoje godine (2001, Best Records) and Samo za tvoje oči (2002, BK Sound) she entered Beovizija, the Serbian Eurovision selection, in 2004 with "Moli me" and finished 11th.

Magija (2005) brought her another album of the year award, followed by JK Revolution in 2008. In December 2009 she released "Insomnia", a version of a song from the Bollywood film Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, which became one of the first Serbian music videos to go viral on YouTube. Together with "Muškarac koji mrzi žene" and "Nova religija (Plava Šeherezada)" from 2011 it led up to the album Diva, released on 11 June 2012 which sold 100,000 copies.

Jelena Karleuša filled the Belgrade Arena with her All About Diva show on 15 May 2010 and played a large open-air concert, Viva La Diva, in Belgrade's Ušće park on 15 June 2013. In 2017 she recorded "Bankina" with Aca Lukas, named collaboration of the year at the Music Awards Ceremony in 2019, and "Ostavljam te" with the Bulgarian singer Azis; "LaJK" with Gazda Paja followed in 2019.

From 2015 to 2021 she was a judge on the talent show Zvezde Granda, and since 2025 she has judged Pinkove zvezde. In 2023 she released two albums at once, Alpha and Omega, on her own label JK Entertainment, and the Alpha and Omega tour opened in Skopje in October 2024. In 2026 she presented "Sad je sve okej", "Balkanboy" and "Mata Hari" from the coming album Enigma.