Leona Lewis is arguably one of the biggest stars ever to come out of X Factor having sold over 35 million records worldwide to date.

The singer rose to fame when she appeared on the hit ITV talent finding show in 2006 going on to win the £1 million recording contract with Simon Cowell's Syco Music.

Leona, 36, has since bagged herself a string of chart-topping single and album releases as well as MOBO Awards, an MTV Europe Music Award, and two World Music Awards.

The star is also a six-time BRIT Award and three-time Grammy Award nominee.

Outside of her chart career, Leona has plenty going on behind the scenes from marriage to health issues and professional feuds.

Finding love

Leona married her professional dancer fiancé Dennis Jauch in July 2019.

The pair tied the knot in Tuscany, Italy, at Sting's 16th century, 865-acre, Il Palagio estate.

The couple had been dating since late 2010.

Prior to meeting Dennis, Leona was in a relationship with her childhood sweetheart Lou Al-Chamaa for eight years.

She was loved-up with the electrician turned talent scout both before and after she found fame with the X-Factor.

Leona even talked about her plans to marry her long-term beau one day prior to their 2010 split.

She said: "I'm sure of it. But that's a long way down the line. We're so young still."

Devastating diagnosis

In 2017, Leona revealed that she had been diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and hypothyroidism two years earlier.

The crippling disease left her struggling with day to day life due to its ranging symptoms.

At the time she said: "I was feeling very sick and had chronic fatigue and these really bad pains in my neck and throat.

I didn’t know what was going on. It was a pretty hard time, and after a bunch of tests, I found out I had an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s disease.”

Opening up further about the illness she said: "When I was first diagnosed, I was absolutely devastated; I felt very scared and alone until I began to research and understand how others were living with the disease.

"When my symptoms were the most severe, I could hear my body telling me that I needed to slow down. I also started to feel tired during performances.”

Multi-million-pound property

Leona has made the most of her success when it comes to her living arrangements, having owned a series of multi-million-pound properties with Dennis.

Residing in America, in November 2019 she sold her lavish $2.25 million ranch, in Glendale, California and upgraded to a $3.7 million guard-gated residence in Los Angeles Hidden Hills.

However, her stay there was short lived and she sold the home to Simon Cowell in 2020 for $3.9 million.

Leona purchased her current property in Studio City for $2.6 million in March 2021.

Syco feud

Leona very famously quit Simon's label that made her famous, Syco, in 2014 announcing her decision on Twitter with a scathing post.

She wrote: “Simon Cowell has been incredible but at the end of a day it’s a huge label now. I felt like at that stage all they were doing was holding me back from fulfilling my potential, to ask me to do a covers album was… there was no love in it.

"They weren’t giving me any choice. So no, I said, we’re done now. It’s all good, I’ve still got so much love but we’re done.”

She continued: “Simon probably doesn’t even know what went on in that way, but I felt disrespected and I felt it was a very callous way to act when all I was trying to do was do what I loved. I was in limbo and that’s the worst place to be. You can’t leave me hanging on a string.”

Leona later clarified her position after signing a new record deal with Universal as she went in to more detail about her reasoning.

She told Newsbeat: “It was amazing at first because it was very intimate and there wasn’t a lot of people working for it. Then it grew and grew which is great for them, but for me it wasn’t so great.

“A lot of decisions had to be made by a lot of different people. Of course Simon being involved – there was a lot of decisions that had to go through him."

“So things got very delayed because he’s a very busy person and taking control of things myself, things have got done a lot quicker."

Leona also took the opportunity to deny that there was any ill-feeling between her and her former mentor.

She added: "There’s no bad blood at all. Simon sent me a really lovely note the other week saying they miss me at the label.

“There’s nothing but love there. He knew I had to leave. He was upset about it but it was time for something new so I’m excited about moving on and doing something different."

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