Tulisa Contostavlos

Birth name       :  Tula Paulinea Contostavlos
Also known as  :  T, The Female Boss
Born                  :  13 July 1988
Genres              :  Hip hop, R&B, grime, jazz
Occupations      :  Singer-songwriter, actress, model, The X Factor judge
Instruments       :  Vocals

Personal Life

Tula Paulinea "Tulisa" Contostavlos born 13 July 1988, sometimes known simply as Tulisa, is a British singer-songwriter. She is best known for being a member of the now defunct Camden-based hip hop group N-Dubz, with her cousin Dappy and their friend Fazer. N-Dubz formed in 2000 and released three studio albums before announcing their indefinite hiatus in 2011.

Contostavlos is currently a judge on the The X Factor and mentored the "Groups" category in her first year including Little Mix, the first ever group to win the competition to date. Contostavlos will release her debut solo album in the summer of 2012. On 16 March 2012, during a Twitter dispute with Dappy, Contostavlos announced that N-Dubz had in fact split up and were not taking a break as stated in 2011.

She was born in Camden Town, North London, to Anne Byrne (who, with her three sisters, was a member of the 1980s band Jeep) and Steve Contostavlos (part of Mungo Jerry). When Tulisa was five, her mother, who has bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Contostavlos' father left the family home when Tulisa was nine years old. She said that she was brought up in a council estate and experienced a lot as a teenager: violence, depression, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, anorexia nervosa, mental health issues, financial difficulties and bullying.  At thirteen she was "on the edge of suicide". She revealed that she twice tried to kill herself as a teenager and also used to self-harm to try to help her cope with everything she was going through. With support from her uncle, N-Dubz's former manager, Byron Contostavlos, at age 14 she enrolled at Haverstock Secondary School, later attending Quintin Kynaston School in St John's Wood, but she didn't sit her GCSE examinations.