Charlotte Perrelli

Born Anna Jenny Charlotte Nilsson on October 7, 1974, Swedish singer Charlotte Perrelli rose to nationwide fame in the late 90s by winning the 44th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. Hailing from Hovmantorp, she took her first steps in music as the lead singer of local dansbands Bengt Ingvars, Kendix, and Anders Engbers before joining the highly-successful Wizex in 1997. After releasing two albums with the band, the Swedish Grammy-nominated Mot nya mål (1998) and the gold record Tusen och en natt (1999), Charlotte Perrelli quit Wizex to launch her solo career. In 1999, she won both the Melodifestivalen and the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Take Me to Your Heaven,” included in her studio debut, Charlotte, released later that year. The album was well-received in her native Sweden, reaching Number 3 on the Albums Chart and paving the way for 2001’s Miss Jealousy, 2004’s Gone Too Long, and 2006’s I din röst, a collection of Monica Zetterlund jazz covers. She reached the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest once again in 2008 with the song “Hero,” which reached the top of the Swedish charts and was featured on the album of the same name. That same year, Charlotte Perrelli also released a Christmas album titled Rimfrostjul and performed at the Summer Olympics in Beijing. She played Eva Peron in the Swedish version of the musical Evita in 2011 and then dropped The Girl, her seventh album, in 2012. Subsequently, Charlotte Perrelli returned with the Swedish albums Min barndoms jul (2013) and Mitt liv (2017), and then made it to the finals of the Melodifestivalen 2021 with the track “Still Young.”