Severina Kojić (ex Vučković), known professionally as Severina, is a Croatian pop singer. In 2006, the Croatian weekly Nacional listed her among the 100 most influential Croats, calling her “the only bona fide Croatian celebrity”. She represented Croatia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, held in Athens, Greece, with the song Moja Štikla, finishing 12th. She won the award “Zlatna ptica” for the best selling artist of the decade in Croatia. In 2015, she was the most googled person in Croatia and Slovenia. In December 2010 Severina met wealthy Serbian businessman Milan Popović at his birthday celebration, where she was hired to perform. They soon began dating, and in August 2011 she announced that she was pregnant with her first child. The relationship caused intense media interest in Croatia and the other former Yugoslav republics. Vedrana Rudan, a Croatian writer, wrote a column where she jokingly called Severina “Tito of a new Yugoslavia”, promoting Brotherhood and unity. On 21 February 2012, she gave birth to a boy named Aleksandar in Split. During the period she lived between Belgrade, Vršac and Zagreb. In October 2012, Severina announced that she and Popović have separated and that she has moved back to Zagreb. At the same time it was announced she had her son baptized in a Catholic church in Rijeka. Several months later the couple reunited until separating for good in August 2013. Since then the couple have been embroiled in custody disputes, with Popović claiming he was not allowed access to see their son, a claim Severina denied. On 22 October 2015 Severina married Serbian footballer Igor Kojić. She has also the Serbian citizenship.
