Leona Louise Lewis (born 3 April 1985) is a British singer, songwriter, and animal welfare campaigner. She was born and raised in Islington, London, and attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology. Lewis gained national recognition after winning the third series of The X Factor in 2006, earning a £1 million recording contract with Syco Music. Her winner's single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This," topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks and set a world record with 50,000 digital downloads in 30 minutes. In February 2007, she signed a five-album deal with J Records in the United States.
Her debut album, Spirit (2007), went 10x platinum in the UK, with the lead single "Bleeding Love" spending seven weeks at number one. Spirit made her the first British female solo artist in over 20 years to top the US Billboard 200 chart. The album sold over eight million copies worldwide, and "Bleeding Love" was the best-selling single of 2008, topping charts in over 30 countries. Billboard named her Top New Artist in 2008. Lewis released her second UK number-one album Echo and recorded the theme for the film Avatar in 2009, followed by her first UK arena tour, The Labyrinth, in 2010. Subsequent releases included the non-album single "Collide" with Avicii (2011), the EP Hurt: The EP (2011), and her third album Glassheart (2012), which introduced dubstep and electronic influences but did not achieve platinum status. In 2013, she released Christmas, with Love, featuring the single "One More Sleep," which reached number three in the UK, making her the first British female solo artist with eight top 5 singles.
Since 2006, Lewis has sold 20 million records worldwide, making her the second best-selling act from The X Factor. She has won a Bambi Award, an MTV Video Music Award, three World Music Awards, and has been nominated for seven Brit Awards and three Grammy Awards. In 2014, she made her film debut in Walking on Sunshine. In 2015, she received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Music Pioneer Award at the United Nations. Lewis made her Broadway debut in July 2016 as Grizabella in the revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats.
United Kingdom
