Jelena Karleuša (; born 17 August 1978) is a Serbian singer and media personality. Born and raised in Belgrade, she rose to prominence upon the release of her debut album Ogledalce in 1995, which was succeeded by five more records released in quick succession to moderate success. In 2002, Karleuša achieved further acclaim by collaborating with Greek label Heaven Music on the album Samo za tvoje oči. Following the success of her subsequent releases, Magija (2005) and JK Revolution (2008), in May 2010, she held a concert in the Belgrade Arena, titled All About Diva Show, in front of 15,000 fans. Her tenth electropop-oriented album Diva was released in 2012. It was promoted with Viva La Diva Show at the Belgrade's Ušće Park in June 2013, to reported 40,000 people. Karleuša also served as a judge and mentor on the popular televised singing competition Zvezde Granda between 2015 and 2021. Karleuša was described as the "Madonna of the Balkans" and "Lady Gaga of Serbia" by Focus and W magazine, respectively, having received significant media coverage due to her provocative and often controversial public persona. Public surveys have cited her as one of the biggest role models of Serbian youth. Karleuša also amassed significant social media following, being the second most-followed person from Serbia on Instagram with over 2.4 million followers. Early life Jelena Karleuša was born on 17 August 1978 in Belgrade, SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia. She is the only child to Slovenian-born journalist and radio host, Divna (1958-2019), and Belgrade-born police Capitan, Dragan Karleuša (1947). She stated that her maternal great-grandmother was an Austrian countess who has a street in Graz named after her, which was, however, denied by the Austrian media and the City of Graz. Karleuša grew-up in the Fontana neighborhood of New Belgrade, where she lived with her mother after her parents had divorced. She attended Zemun Gymnasium, but eventually graduated from the New Belgrade's High School of Tourism. According to Karleuša, she also attended music school and played the flute as a child. She cited Lepa Brena as one of her main musical influences growing up. Career 1990s At sixteen years of age, Karleuša made her recording debut with a financial help from singer Dragana Mirković. Her first album, Ogledalce (Little Mirror), was released on 24 April 1995 by Diskos in 100,000 copies. She made her first performance the same year at the annual Poselo