Magdi Ruzsa

Magdi Ruzsa, born Magdolna Rúzsa on 28 November 1985 in Vrbas, Serbia, is a Hungarian singer, songwriter and composer from the Hungarian minority in Serbia. Before music took over she trained in Subotica as an obstetric nurse.

She entered the third season of Megasztár, Hungary's nationwide talent search, in 2005, and won it in 2006. Her audition songs were "Highway to Hell" and "Aprócska blues", and in the final she sang ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". The album of her finale songs, A döntőkben elhangzott dalok, went to number one in Hungary, as did her first studio album, Ördögi angyal (2006), with the singles "Aprócska blues", "Hip-Hop" and "Vigyázz a madárra". She often sings songs by her favourite, Janis Joplin.

In 2007 she represented Hungary at the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki with her own song "Unsubstantial Blues", sung in English. She came second in the semi-final with 224 points and ninth in the final with 128, and won the Marcel Bezençon Award for best composer. That year she was also named newcomer of the year at the Fonogram awards.

More studio albums followed: Iránytű (2008), Tizenegy (2012), which reached number one, Érj hozzám (2016), Aduász (2018), Lélekcirkusz (2019), Angyalkert (2020), Karma (2021) and Tempera (2025). In 2011 she starred in the stage show Magdaléna Rúzsa at Budapest's Pesti Színház, and she has played double concerts at the Budapest Sportaréna in 2016, 2023 and 2024. From 2013 to 2015 she sat on the jury of A Dal, Hungary's Eurovision selection, and in 2024 she was a judge on the seventh season of Megasztár.

Magdi Ruzsa won the MTV Europe Music Award for best Hungarian act in 2017. In March 2026 she received the Kossuth Prize, the youngest pop singer to do so after Zsuzsa Koncz and Kati Kovács. She married Vilmos Simon in 2017, and in February 2022 she gave birth to triplets.