Who Is Leona Lewis In Real Life?

Who is Leona Lewis in real life? A lot of my friends even call her Leona Luis, which is quite a big mistake. Despite the confusion from Leona Lewis and Leona Luis, it's a fact that er song Bleeding Love is now the best selling single of 2007 in the UK and has so far reached number one in the singles and airplay charts in over twenty-seven countries, including most notably the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and the United World Chart.

But how much do you really know about her? What's her life story?

Leona Lewis was born in Islington, a London district. Her parents are Aural Josiah, a Guyanese Afro-Caribbean youth worker, and Maria Lewis, a social worker of Anglo-Welsh descent. She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School at the age of five, and later the Italia Conti Academy and the BRIT School.

Lewis wrote her first song at the very young age of twelve, and won several talent competitions. After leaving school, Lewis took on waitressing and several receptionist jobs to sustain her expenses while she tries to get into a recording studio.

She recorded a several songs including a demo album of her own compositions entitled Twilight, which was never released. At fifteen years, she recorded a version of Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You" with music producer Marley J. Wills, after which Lewis and Wills were invited to the U.S. by Sony. Wills commented that "Leona could hit the notes and I think she did it better than the original."

Unfortunately, when her music career seemed to be going nowhere, she decided to finally give up, until her boyfriend persuaded her to enter The X Factor.

In 2006, Lewis auditioned for the third series of The X Factor, singing "Over the Rainbow". She made it until the final stages and was announced the winner on 16 December 2006, winning a £1 million recording contract. She went under the mentoring of Simon Cowell.

After that, her career started it's very exciting climb.

To Leona Lewis (or Leona Luis for those who don't know her quite much that yet), good luck and congratulations.