Leona Louise Lewis (born 3 April 1985) is a singer, songwriter, actress, model, and activist from the United Kingdom. She grew up in the London Borough of Islington and attended the BRIT School of Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon.
Lewis rose to national prominence after winning the third series of The X Factor in 2006, earning a £1 million recording contract with Syco Music. Her winning single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment Like This,” peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks and set a world record by reaching 50,000 digital downloads in 30 minutes. Lewis signed a five-album deal with Clive Davis’s record label, J Records, in the United States in February 2007.
Lewis’ success continued with the release of her debut studio album, Spirit (2007), which was certified 10 platinum in the UK and went on to become the fourth best-selling album of the 2000s as well as one of the best-selling albums in UK chart history. Spirit is the best-selling debut album by a female artist in the twenty-first century, according to the Official Charts Company. “Bleeding Love,” the lead single, spent seven weeks at number one in the United Kingdom and was the best-selling single of 2007. It was the best-selling single in the United States in 2008, and Lewis was named Billboard’s Best New Artist that year. In 2009, she released her second studio album, Echo, and recorded the theme song for the film Avatar, “I See You.”
Lewis released her debut extended play, Hurt: The EP, in 2011, along with the single “Collide,” a collaboration with Swedish DJ Avicii. Glassheart (2012), Lewis’ third studio album, marked a new creative direction for her, drawing inspiration from dubstep and electronic music. During her Glassheart Tour in mid-2013, she began recording material for her first Christmas album. Later that year, Christmas, with Love was released, and its lead single, “One More Sleep,” peaked at number three in the UK. Lewis became the first British female solo artist to reach the top five with eight singles, breaking Olivia Newton-previous John’s record of seven.
Walking on Sunshine was her film debut in 2014, and I Am, her fourth studio album, was released the following year. Lewis made her Broadway debut as Grizabella in the revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats in 2016, and she signed a modeling contract with Wilhelmina Models the following year. She later worked with Calum Scott on the single “You Are The Reason” (2018) and had a recurring role on the American television series The Oath (2019). Lewis became a judge on the Paramount Plus show Queen of the Universe in 2021.
According to her record label, Lewis has sold over 35 million records worldwide as of 2021. She has two MOBO Awards, an MTV Europe Music Award, and two World Music Awards under her belt. She has also been nominated for six BRIT Awards and three Grammy Awards. Lewis has publicly supported various charitable causes, particularly animal rights; she is also vegan.
Bleeding Love 2007 by Leona Lewis
“Bleeding Love” is a song recorded by English singer Leona Lewis for her debut studio album Spirit (2007). Jointly composed by Jesse McCartney and Ryan Tedder, and produced by Tedder, the song is the album’s lead single; officially, it was Lewis’s official second single and followed “A Moment Like This”. It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in October 2007. Debuting at number one on the UK Singles Chart and the Irish Singles Chart, “Bleeding Love” became the best-selling single of 2007 in both countries.
After the single’s release, it became a major international hit and was the best-selling single of 2008 worldwide. The single reached number one in 35 countries, including Japan, France, Germany and the United States, making it only the second song in history to achieve this feat, Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind 1997” being the first. The accompanying music video first aired on 17 October 2007, and was uploaded to YouTube on the same day.
“Bleeding Love” has sold more than one million copies in the United Kingdom, and over 4 million digital downloads in the United States, where it was the best-selling digital song there in 2008. It was named the 17th most successful song in the US from 2000 to 2009. “Bleeding Love” has charted on the UK Singles Chart in three different years: in 2007 it peaked at number one; 2008 at number 76; and 2009 at number 97. It sold 788,000 copies in the UK alone during 2007. “Bleeding Love” was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 51st Grammy Awards. At the 2008 Brit Awards it was nominated for Best British Single. It is Lewis’s biggest hit in the US to date and remains her signature song. As of 2021, the song has been streamed over two billion times.
