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Έλενα Παπαρίζου (Helena Paparizou) (born on January 31, 1982 in Borås, Västergötland, Sweden) is a Swedish-born Greek singer, born to Greek immigrant parents and raised in Örgryte, Gothenburg. On her occasional international releases, she is credited as 'Helena Paparizou'. Paparizou's artistic talents and eagerness to excel became apparent very early, and she was soon involved in singing, dancing and acting-training in combination with her academic studies at school. At age 7, she started learn...

Έλενα Παπαρίζου (Helena Paparizou) (born on January 31, 1982 in Borås, Västergötland, Sweden) is a Swedish-born Greek singer, born to Greek immigrant parents and raised in Örgryte, Gothenburg. On her occasional international releases, she is credited as 'Helena Paparizou'.

Paparizou's artistic talents and eagerness to excel became apparent very early, and she was soon involved in singing, dancing and acting-training in combination with her academic studies at school. At age 7, she started learning piano, ballet, and traditional dances. At the age of 14, Elena started her first band called "Soul Funkomatic" along with 3 Latin American kids. The group only played hip-hop music, and saved up money to record songs. Two years later by age 16, the band broke up and Helena was offered various proposals, but her mother said she was too young to leave home.

In 1998, 13 of her close friends died in a fire at a hip-hop party at a nightclub in Gothenburg that she had begged her mother to go to but was denied. After losing her friends, she decided to abandon singing, and she started classes at the Art Performing School where she studied theater, acting, television, and directing. In 1999, some DJ friends of her brother asked her to make a demo of Opa Opa. Elena told them that the lyrics were written to be sung be a male singer, so she asked to sing it with childhood friend Nikos Panagiotidis (Νίκος Παναγιωτίδης).

Paparizou, determined to succeed and fulfill her dreams of being an entertainer, joined childhood friend and fellow Greek-Swede Nikos Panagiotidis, at the age of 17, to form Antique. By 2001, the duo had made a name for itself which led to them being selected as Greece's representatives for the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 in Copenhagen. The duo reached third place with the song, "(I Would) Die for You".

Antique's success in the Eurovision Song Contest led to them recording four studio albums. Antique disbanded in 2003, and Elena decided to pursue a solo career. In spring 2004, she released her first solo album, Προτεραιότητα, from which "Αντιθέσεις", "Κάτσε καλά" and "Στην καρδιά μου μόνο θλίψη" became hit singles. The album was certified double platinum in Greece following her victory in the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest.

On 2 February 2011, Paparizou was one of eight acts of MAD TV's first charity fashion music show MADWalk, an equivalent to the international Fashion Rocks, where she represented fashion designer Apostolos Mitropoulos and performed her new single "Baby It's Over", which will be included on her triple greatest hits album Greatest Hits & More to be released in late March. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.