50 facts about talented singer Leona Lewis

Lewis won the third series of The X Factor in 2006, winning a £1 million recording contract with Simon Cowell's record label, Syco Music.

1. Leona Louise Lewis is a British singer, songwriter and animal welfare campaigner.

2. Leona Lewis was born and raised in the London Borough of Islington, where she attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology.

3. Leona Lewis achieved national recognition when she won the third series of The X Factor in 2006, winning a £1 million recording contract with Simon Cowell's record label, Syco Music.

4. Her winners single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This", peaked at number one for four weeks on the UK Singles Chart and it broke a world record for having 50,000 digital downloads within 30 minutes.

5. In February 2007, Lewis signed a five-album contract in the United States with Clive Davis's record label, J Records (now RCA Records).

6. Lewis's success continued with the release of her debut album, Spirit, in 2007; it went 10x platinum in the United Kingdom, while the lead single, "Bleeding Love", spent seven weeks at number-one.

7. Leona Lewis achieved international recognition with the album in 2008, when she became the first British female solo artist to top the US Billboard 200 album chart in more than 20 years.

8. Spirit has sold more than eight million copies worldwide, and "Bleeding Love" peaked at number one in over 30 countries, becoming the best-selling single of 2008. As a result, she was proclaimed 'Top New Artist' by Billboard in 2008.

9. Under the guidance of Cowell and Davis, Lewis released her second UK number-one album Echo and recorded the theme song for the film Avatar in 2009, while embarking on her first UK arena tour, The Labyrinth, in 2010.

10. In 2011, Lewis released the non-album single "Collide", a collaboration with Swedish DJ Avicii, and her first extended play, Hurt: The EP.

11. Her third album, Glassheart, was released in 2012. It marked a new creative direction for Lewis, drawing inspiration from dubstep and electronic music. However, it failed to match the commercial performance of her two previous albums, peaking at number three on the UK Albums Chart and becoming her first to not be certified platinum.

12. Lewis began to record material for her first Christmas album during her Glassheart Tour, which took place in mid 2013.

13. Christmas, with Love was released later that year. Its lead single, "One More Sleep", peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart. With this chart entry, Lewis became the first British female solo artist to achieve eight top 5 singles, surpassing Olivia Newton-John's record of seven.

14. In 2014, English recording artist Cheryl Cole equaled this tally, and they hold the record jointly.

15. With a career spanning eight years, Lewis is the best-selling act to have emerged from The X Factor franchise, having sold 20 million records worldwide.

16. Leona Lewis has won one Bambi Award, 5 MTV Europe Music Award nominations, an MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards.

17. She is also a seven-time Brit Award and three-time Grammy Award nominee.

18. Leona Lewis is known for her expansive four octave mezzo-soprano vocal range, power, technical control and, in particular, her frequent use of the falsetto register.

19. Aside from her musical career, Lewis is a philanthropist and an animal welfare campaigner for World Animal Protection and is a supporter of other animal rights charities and organisations.

20. Leona Lewis is also a vegetarian.

21. In 2014, Lewis made her film debut in the supporting role of Elena in the romantic comedy musical, Walking on Sunshine.

22. Leona Lewis was born in the London Borough of Islington on 3 April 1985, to her father Aural Josiah "Joe" Lewis, a youth offending officer and DJ of Afro-Guyanese descent, and her mother Maria Lewis, a social worker and former ballet teacher of Welsh, Irish, and Italian descent.

23. Leona Lewis has two brothers: an older half-brother named Bradley and a younger brother named Kyle.

24. As her parents began to realise Lewis's passion for singing, they enrolled her at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, and later to the Italia Conti Academy, the Ravenscourt Theatre School and the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology until they could no longer afford to do so, making cutbacks when necessary in order to help their daughter achieve her dream of being a singer.

25. Leona Lewis wrote her first song at the age of 12.

26. She initially trained in opera, before moving into jazz and blues, and eventually into popular and contemporary music.

27. At the age of 17, Lewis decided to leave BRIT School in order to "get out there" and pursue a career in music. By this point, she had already begun to write and record her own material, and worked as a receptionist at a solicitors office and as a Pizza Hut waitress in order to fund the studio sessions.

28. At age 18, Lewis secured a lead role in The Lion King theatre show in Paris; however, she decided to turn the part down after she hurt her back while ice-skating.

29. Leona Lewis auditioned for the third series of The X Factor in 2006, singing "Over the Rainbow" for judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Sharon Osbourne and guest judge Paula Abdul. She was placed in the girls category, with Cowell as her mentor.

30. Throughout the course of the show, Lewis was compared to Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Celine Dion (as well as other artists), performing songs by all three of them.

31. Leona Lewis was declared the winner of the competition in December 2006, beating runner up Ray Quinn, garnering 60% of the public vote; more than eight million votes were cast.

32. Upon winning, Lewis said: I'm just shocked. It's unbelievable. I feel like my dream has come true, the dream I've been dreaming since a little girl has come true. There were points I thought, 'You know what, I don't know if this is going to happen'. But with the help from my friends and my family, they all kept telling me to believe in myself and keep on doing it and I did and now I'm here and thank you so much to them.

33. Lewis's winner's single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's song "A Moment Like This", was released on 17 December 2006. In the United Kingdom, it broke a world record after being digitally downloaded more than 50,000 times in less than 30 minutes. The song became the 2006 UK Christmas number-one single, selling 571,000 copies in its first week and selling more than the Top-40 combined.

34. Leona Lewis possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range which spans four octaves, and has had classical training.

35. Leona Lewis has stated that she practises operatic scales every week.

36. Leona Lewis credits Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston as her major influences. She said, "when I was growing up I used to listen to Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, those kind[s] of big powerful kind of singers so that influences a lot of my music and a lot of the songs I like to sing."

37. Leona Lewis cited Tracy Chapman, Kate Bush and Tears for Fears as her third studio album's primary influences.

38. Girl group Fifth Harmony has named Leona as one of their primary influences, citing her as "amazing."

39. In October 2008, The Times reported that Lewis had turned down a seven-figure sum from Mohamed Al Fayed to open a Harrods sale. Lewis commented that she turned down the deal on the grounds that Harrods is the only UK department store which continues to stock clothing made from animal fur. "It wasn't a million pounds that I was offered, as the papers reported, but even if it had been, I still would have turned it down." "I got a lot of flak for that. There were people who said I should have done it and given the money to charity, but that would have been such a contradiction."

40. She announced in October 2008 that she was in the "bargaining period" of launching her own ethical line of accessories through Topshop, and that she was in the late stages of releasing her own perfume in Europe.

41. Her perfume, Leona Lewis, was launched by LR in July 2009.

42. In 2010, she set up a fashion company with her then boyfriend, Lou Al-Chamaa, called LOA Clothing Ltd.

43. In 2011, Lewis was a guest judge on Platinum Hit, and in May 2012, she returned to The X Factor as a guest judge during auditions in London for the ninth series.

44. In March 2013, Lewis was announced as the new brand activist for The Body Shop.

45. She has also shown support for Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit that works to restore and revitalize music education in disadvantaged U.S. public schools, by donating items for auction to raise money for the organization.

46. Lewis lives in Hackney, north-east London.

47. Leona Lewis also was named PETA's Person of the Year for 2008.

48. Leona Lewis is a supporter of World Animal Protection and is a patron of the Hopefield Animal Sanctuary in Brentwood, Essex.

49. Leona Lewis is a supporter of Premier League football club Arsenal F.C.

50. In September 2014, via an open letter to fans, Lewis revealed that she had been suffering from depression around the time of her departure from Syco. She credited her professional separation from Simon Cowell and meditation with helping her "still the madness."

Source: Wikipedia.org