Ella Endlich

Jacqueline Zebisch (born 18 June 1984), known professionally as Ella Endlich, is a German singer and dancer who also performed as Junia as a teenager. Best known for her song "Küss mich, halt mich, lieb mich", which is based on the title song of the film Tři oříšky pro Popelku, she participated in the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016.

Career

1984–2009: Early life and career beginnings

Ella Endlich was born in Weimar. She is the daughter of songwriter and record producer Norbert Endlich. In 1989, she moved with her family to West Berlin. At age 10, she sang for the first time in a recording studio in Los Angeles, Miami, and London.

She signed her first contract with Columbia Records on 18 June 1998, her fourteenth birthday, which inspired her stage name at the time, Junia. Its follow-up "My Guy" peaked at 54 in Germany and her third single "Who's the Other Woman" peaked at 72 in the country, while her fourth single "Skaterboy", released in 2000, did not chart. All of these songs appeared on her début album Junia, released in 2000.

In 2000, during her teenage career, she took an apprenticeship in the field musical theater at the Musicalstudio Neukölln and finished the Realschule to study at the Bayrischen Theaterakademie August in Munich In 2001 and 2002, she was part of the ensemble of the Bregenzer Festspielproduktionen that performed La Bohème and West Side Story. and reached gold status. The song is based on the title song of the film Tři oříšky pro Popelku. In October 2010, she released her first album as Ella Endlich, Da (English: "Here"), which peaked at 53 in Germany and 66 in Austria. Its follow-up Meilenweit (English: "Miles and Miles"), released exactly a year later, peaked at 94 in Germany. In 2012, Endlich released an EP titled Wintercollage. Her album Die süße Wahrheit (English: "The Sweet Truth") was released in June 2014. Later that year, she switched record labels, management, and producers.

In February 2016, Endlich released the album Träume auf Asphalt (English: "Dreams on Asphalt") through Universal and participated in the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "Adrenalin". She was a judge on the fifteenth season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (the German version of Pop Idol and American Idol), which aired from 3 January to 5 May 2018, alongside Dieter Bohlen, Mousse T., and Carolin Niemczyk.

In February 2019, Endlich was announced as a contestant on season 12 of Let's Dance, and her partner was Valentin Lusin. On 29 March, she received the 1st 10 of the season, and received the 1st perfect score of the season 3 weeks later. She earned that same score the next 2 weeks & the last 3 weeks of the season. She broke the record of the most perfect scores of 40, with 11, later matched by season 16 winner Anna Ermakova, and the most 10s of any contestant, with 55 out of 76. On 14 June, she and Lusin finished as the runners-up behind handball player Pascal Hens and partner Ekaterina Leonova.

Discography Studio albums As Junia 2000: Junia

As Ella Endlich 2010: Da 2011: Meilenweit 2012: Wintercollage (Teldec, 5053105521326) 2014: Die süße Wahrheit 2016: Träume auf Asphalt 2018: Im Vertrauen 2021: Endlich Weihnachten (with Norbert Endlich)