Background and career
Ketevan "Katie" Melua (; Georgian: ქეთევან "ქეთი" მელუა, IPA: [kʰetʰevan melua]; born 16 September 1984) is a singer from the United Kingdom. She was born in Kutaisi, Georgia and raised in Belfast and London. Under the management of composer Mike Batt, she was signed to the small Dramatico record label. She made her musical debut in 2003 and within three years, she was the United Kingdom's best-selling female artist as well as Europe's highest-selling female artist. In November 2003, Melua released her first album, Call Off the Search, which reached the top of the United Kingdom album charts and sold 1.8 million copies in its first five months of release. Her second album, Piece by Piece, was released in September 2005, and to date has gone platinum (one million units sold) four times. She released her third studio album Pictures in October 2007. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Melua had amassed a fortune of £18 million, making her the seventh-richest British musician under the age of 30.
Ketevan Melua was born on 16 September 1984 to Amiran and Tamara Melua in Kutaisi, Georgia, which was then part of the Soviet Union. She is also partly of Canadian and Russian ancestry. She was baptised into the Georgian Orthodox Church. Melua spent her first years with her grandparents in Tbilisi before moving with her parents and brother to the city of Batumi, where her father worked as a heart specialist. During this time, she sometimes had to carry buckets of water up five flights of stairs to her family's flat and according to her, "Now, when I'm staying in luxurious hotels, I think back to those days". In 1993, the family emigrated to Belfast, Northern Ireland in the aftermath of the Georgian Civil War. Her father, a heart surgeon, took up a position at the Royal Victoria Hospital. The family remained in Belfast, living close to Falls Road, until she was 14. During her time in Northern Ireland, she attended the Roman Catholic schools St Catherine's Primary School and Dominican College, Fortwilliam, while her younger brother attended state schools. The family then moved to Sutton, London and some time later moved again to Redhill, Surrey. In 2008, Melua moved out of her parents' home in Maida Vale to an apartment in Notting Hill, where she transformed the spare bedroom into a recording studio. After completing her GCSEs at the all-girls' grammar school Nonsuch High School in Cheam, she attended the BRIT School for the Performing Arts in the London Borough of Croydon, undertaking a BTEC with an A-level in music.
On 10 August 2005, just before she turned 21, Melua became a British citizen along with her parents and brother. The citizenship ceremony took place in Weybridge, Surrey. Becoming a British citizen meant that Melua had held three citizenships before she was 21; first Soviet, Georgian and currently, British. After the ceremony, Melua stated her pride at her newest nationality. "As a family, we have been very fortunate to find a happy lifestyle in this country and we feel we belong. We still consider ourselves to be Georgian, because that is where our roots are, and I return to Georgia every year to see my uncles and grandparents, but I am proud to now be a British citizen".
Melua is fluent in English and speaks some Russian; despite still speaking her native Georgian fluently she has said that she cannot write songs in the language. Melua has been referred to as an 'adrenaline junkie' because she enjoys roller coasters and funfairs and often paraglides and hang glides. She has skydived four times and taken several flying lessons, and in 2004 she was lowered from a 200-metre (660 ft) building in New Zealand at 60 mph (97 km/h). When asked about Melua being an 'adrenaline junkie', Mike Batt said, "she enjoys extremes, but in life her emotions are always in check". In November 2009, Melua nearly drowned while diving in a lake near Heathrow Airport. In September 2010, Melua was ordered by her doctors to stop working for a few months after suffering a nervous breakdown, resulting in her hospitalisation for six weeks. As a result, all touring and promotional activities were postponed until the following year. Melua opened up about the breakdown years later in an interview with The Independent, saying that it ended up being one of the best things that had ever happened to her, as she said it helped to quash a feeling of superiority she felt by being a successful musician in the music industry. "It was petrifying, but it put a stop to fantasies of being able to do anything. The oddest thing about this job is the sense of superiority you get. It was a huge wake-up call. I was completely out of it for two weeks, and in hospital for six. There was a bunch of things going on, things at home and crazy work schedules, and you really believe the world revolved around you and it doesn't." In January 2012, Melua confirmed her engagement to World Superbike racer and musician James Toseland. The couple married on 1 September 2012 in the Nash Conservatory at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, southwest London. A 2020 interview with the national Swedish news agency TT revealed that the couple had separated. Interviewed on ITV's Lorraine live from West London on 16 October 2020, Melua confirmed that the couple had divorced. In August 2022, Melua announced her pregnancy with her first child and gave birth to her son, Sandro, in November. Speaking to ITV News in March 2023 ahead of her European tour, Melua said that she should not have to choose between childcare and her career and that Sandro would accompany her throughout the tour.
After an upbringing in politically unstable Georgia, Melua planned initially to become either an historian or a politician. This changed in 2000, at the age of 15, when Melua took part in a talent competition on British television channel ITV called "Stars Up Their Noses" (a spoof of Stars in Their Eyes) as part of the children's programme Mad for It. Melua won the contest by singing Badfinger's "Without You". The prize was £350 worth of MFI vouchers, with which she bought a chair for her father. Had she lost the contest, she would have been gunged.
After completing her GCSEs, Melua attended the BRIT School for the Performing Arts in the London Borough of Croydon, undertaking a BTEC with an A-level in music. When studying at the school, Melua began to write songs and met her future manager and producer, Mike Batt. While performing at BRIT School showcase, Melua caught the eye of songwriter and producer Mike Batt. Batt was originally looking for an acid-rock band, bass player and a singer capable of singing "jazz and blues in an interesting way". After hearing Melua sing "Faraway Voice" (a song she wrote about the death of her idol Eva Cassidy) Batt signed the 18-year-old Melua to his small Dramatico recording and management company and took her into the studio, producing her first three albums during the subsequent years, plus her fifth and sixth albums.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
